


'cause i know that it's delicate

by Sapphic-Mia (JMoonrise)



Series: Delicate [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, F/F, Forgiveness, Kid Fic, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Mental Health Issues, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Romance, Slow Burn, falling back in love, married supercorp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:29:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 92,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25041691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMoonrise/pseuds/Sapphic-Mia
Summary: The first thing she is aware of after her time in the darkness is the overwhelming brightness of the fluorescent lights of a hospital? She has to blink a few times to clear her blurry sight.And as her vision clears, the first thing she sees is Kara. Kara who called her a villain a few hours ago and told her she’ll take care of her the way she does any other villain. Kara, who never held her family legacy against her. Kara who has lied to her multiple times. What did she care if Kara viewed her the same as all the other Luthors?Except Kara isn’t paying her the slightest attention, hasn’t noticed her at all. “No you can’t jus- what do you- I explicitly said no- the Big Easy? Who even taught you that?” She is pacing in circles, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I swear that you and your sisters and brother will be beyond grounded if you aren’t back at your grandmother’s in the next twenty minutes. I don’t ca-”"K-Kara?" The blonde stumbles, whirling around to face her with those surprised blue eyes.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Series: Delicate [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951237
Comments: 771
Kudos: 1390





	1. this ain't for the best

**Author's Note:**

> I know that it has been done before, but I want to put my own little spin on it. So it has been ten years since the end of season 5, but for Lena, it is right after the now infamous balcony scene that was just meant to tear out supercorp hearts. I mean seriously why do I bother shipping anything?

The waves break against the black rocks in the distance, spraying the air with splashes of white. The water travels up the shore, fringed white, ready to claim the land before sweeping back, retreating for the time. Footprints and any other disturbances are erased as the sand smoothes out.

There is a slight chill in the air, but nothing to keep anyone indoors as the sun shines down, reflecting off the sea, creating the purest blue. The crescendo of waves is beautiful, creating with it a melody very few appreciated. The perfume of salt water spread through the air, and the figure closes her eyes, soaking it all in. This is where she feels the most normal. There’s no Supergirl here.

She feels the pulsing of the sea, hears the call of its’ steady rhythm. The roar of the water is a sound she is most familiar with, having grown up with it and using it to center her when she lost control. It was her focal point when everything was too loud.

Her moment of peace is broken by loud squeals as children chase and splash one another, appreciating the gift of the sea. Her pink lips curve upward as she watches them, their innocence still present. They don’t know the horrors of life and she hopes they never will, but the world will eventually disappoint them.

They are too busy whooping and hollering, none of them watching as a massive wave forms in the distance and crashes on top of them, knocking all of them off their feet. She covers her mouth to hide her laugh as they spew water from their mouths, each of their faces the picture of disgust. She snorts as they come trudging up the beach with pouts on their sun kissed faces. “That’s not fair. I won. I was the last one to fall.”

The blonde haired girl receives several scoffs from her compatriots and crosses her arms, pout further deepening on her cherubic face. “No, you cheated.” One of her sister’s cackles.

She has heard the same argument from each of them for the last few months. All of them are highly competitive and sore losers to the extreme.

“Mommy!!!” They call out, displacing sand in their wake as they race up the beach to reach her and cover her in their grime.

She shakes her head, bracing herself for impact. Ten seconds later her arms are filled with four wet, sandy children collapsing on top of her. Her laughter fills the air and for the first time in months, she feels lighter like the whole world isn’t resting on her shoulders, pressing harder with each minute, waiting for her to fail. She kisses three blonde heads with her lips lingering on the dark head of her only son.

“It’s a family sandwich.” She squeezes them, not too hard, despite them sharing half of her DNA. She does her best to impress upon them controlling their strength.

She wishes she hadn’t said anything when she sees their faces crumble, cursing herself internally for briefly forgetting for just a moment why they’re here in the first place. 

Before family sandwiches, it was mommy sandwiches, except she’s the only mommy left. It is the reason she has retreated to the home of her adolescence, well to Midvale at any rate.

She didn’t go back to her mother’s. It was crowded enough when she and Alex shared a room, and she didn’t want to think of the logistics of sleeping five other people besides her foster mom. So, she bought a house, somewhere the memories didn’t hurt as much and they could escape.

“How about Chinese? We could order potstickers and have a competition?” Her heart clencheswhenever she is confronted with their sad faces because it is something she can’t heal. Supergirl is supposed to save people and protect her city, but how can she expect to do that when she has failed her own wife and children so miserably?

They are subdued as they agree whereas six months previous, there would be enthusiastic replies as they each claim they have the superior stomachs. Now, they barely display the familiar competitive attitude, except in those rare moments where they forget and are regular children.

When she first wakes up, that’s when she forgets the most. Her mind hasn’t processed reality yet and she can almost convince herself that she’s there beside her until she turns over, seeing the lack of an indent in the mattress. It isn’t their bed but her bed. And she has to fight herself to climb out of her bed and face the day for their children.

“Come on, let’s pack up and we’ll go home.” They grumble under their breaths about ‘child labor laws’, but she pays them no attention. She appreciates the moments of normality where they aren’t suffocating, remembering the absence that has left a deep ache in all of their hearts. That first week was nothing but tears and nightmares as they slow began to accept their new reality.

As they begin their trek up to their seaside house, Kara takes one last look at sea. She wishes the sea could wipe away the last six months, but there is nothing in existence that can cleanse her soul of this loss. She thought she had known pain and loss when her entire planet exploded, but all of that pales in comparison to the agony she experiences every day when she wakes up alone, knowing she failed her wife because at least her culture and people aren't entirely gone.

* * *

She lays on the sofa, children piled on top of her, cuddled into her side, snoring loudly as _Lilo & Stitch_ plays in the background. The tears start falling before she has an opportunity to pull herself together. She buries her face in her eldest daughter’s hair, inhaling the flowery scent of her shampoo. Oona snuggles in deeper, pressing her face into the column of her mother’s neck as her younger brother shifts restlessly, kicking his mother.

Kara cards her fingers through Liam’s dark hair, smiling at the drool pooling on her chest. Eilis and Orla are strewn across the opposite end of the sofa, legs tangled with hers. Her children keep her grounded and are the reason she hasn’t gone off on some half cocked mission. She is their only parent now and she can’t leave them. For the first time ever, Kara as a person comes first.

She drifts off to the familiar line “ _Ohana means family and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”_ The line held so much emotion and the movie was one of the first she and Alex watched together as real sisters.

Blinking blearily, eyes focusing in the dark, her brows scrunch as she searches for the source of her unwelcome awakening. On the table, her phone vibrates with a call from her sister. She shifts her children, sliding out from under their dead weight as she reaches for her phone.

Kara accepts the call as she heads into the kitchen for a drink of water. “Hello?” Her voice is scratchy.

“We found her.”

Her hand tightens around her phone and she has to remind herself to loosen her grip unless she wants to wreck another phone. It doesn’t matter if she can afford it or not, she can’t lose control. “Wh-what? Alex?” She stifles a sob.

“I’m serious Kara. She turned up at Memorial unconscious, but it’s her.”

Her knees tremble and she slides to the ground with tears pouring down her face. Blood pounds in her ears as she feels her heart rate quicken. Her fingers clutch at her chest, and she idly wonders if it’s possible for her to have a heart attack.

“Kara, breath,” Alex pleads with her.

The blonde furrows her brows at her sister’s words until it occurs she isn’t breathing. She exhales with a loud whoosh. “I-I just I-I,” she cries, her shoulders shaking. “Th-they said it was unlikely… no survivors and sh-she is alive.”

Images of her wife flash across her brain and the pain lessens slowly, receding to the edges of her mind. Her wife is alive. She checks out as her sister’s voice fills her ear with some of the pertinent details, her mind whirs with memories from the very first time they met to the day she boarded the plane. Nearly fifteen years worth of moments that she has kept close to her heart unleash and she lets out months of pent up emotions, her cries transitioning into silent whimpers.

She thought she would never hear the subtle Irish lilt as they cuddled close in bed at night, sharing the highlights of their day. She adores a sleepy Lena, the one whose walls are lowered and who doesn’t feel the need to keep up pretenses. That is her Lena, and she has spent six incredibly, long months without her. Most of all, she misses her smile, the one reserved solely for her, or the string of darlings that left her lips. No one else has ever called her darling.

Kara swore after nearly a year of distance between them, they would never be apart longer than a week at the most, usually on Lena’s end. She knew what it was like to live without the other woman and it was empty. There was no one quite like her in her life. It took her a long time to recognize what was in front of her and accept that her feelings weren’t going away and meant something beyond friendship. It was the start of her understanding as to why her relationships with men failed. It was because she wasn’t as into them as she initially thought, not when a beautiful brunette captured her attention from the moment she asked for her name.

Lena is alive. She holds onto that. She just can't believe it. She had almost given up hope, resigning herself to this loneliness.

“You’re sure?” She doesn’t mean to doubt her sister, aware she wouldn’t allow her to get her hope up unless she was certain. She has to double check.

“Yes, I promise. I’m at the hospital. I can send you a photo.”

“N-no don’t.” If she sees a photo, she’ll be flying out of her house within seconds. She has to think rationally and call Eliza to watch the kids. She has to be responsible. “Let me call Eli-mom,” she switches between her name and mom. She has developed a new closeness with the woman who took in a scared alien girl. “I’m going to drive.” If she flies, she isn’t sure she’ll be thinking straight. Driving will provide her the time to process and accept this as true. “I’ll text when I’m on my way.”

“Okay Kara, just be safe, and I’ll stay here with Lena until you arrive.”

“Alex?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. I love you.” Her sister has been her rock, ready to help whenever.

“I love you too and you never have to thank me. Lena is my family too.”

They end the call seconds later and Kara freezes in place. She doesn’t know what to do first. It’s setting in that she’s going to see Lena.

Her phone is already in her hand, so she wakes her mother, providing few details but requiring her presence ASAP.

Then she heads upstair to pack a bag. She cleared her favorites out of their brownstone when she fled the property five months ago with their children. She slides into a favorite pair of jeans and pulls Lena’s MIT hoodie over her head. The smell of Chanel No. 5 has faded in the last few months, but she takes comfort from the worn material anyway. She sleeps in it almost every night.

After she finishes her preparation for her departure, she waits outside on the porch swing, enjoying the early morning breeze and the thundering of the sea. Sometimes she wonders why she ever moved away when she loves Midvale from the briny air that fills her lungs to the almost never-ending sunshine to the quietness. She loves the stillness. The sounds of a million people aren’t a dull thrum in her ear and she can just be. She is just Kara. 

Bright headlights in the distance bring her one step closer to National City and to Lena, her heart. She pushes herself up, a smile on her face.

Eliza parks her car, grabbing her bag as she gets out. Kara is there to greet her with a warm hug, something the mother hasn’t received many of since her daughter’s relocation. An unaffectionate Kara wasn’t one she had much experience with and it worried her to watch as more of her daughter was chipped away with each passing day.

“They found her. Alex is staying with her, and it feels like Christmas and my birthday and every wish I’ve ever made wrapped into one. I’ve prayed to Rao every single night for a miracle, and i-it’s happened.”

Eliza rubs her back as Kara falls apart. “Shh… I know honey.” She would never wish the loss of a spouse on anyone and to watch her daughter suffer all these months has killed her. “Come on, why don’t you say goodbye to the kids and we’ll get you on your way.”

She nods, sniffling. She thought she had no tears left to cry, but they kept coming. Saying goodbye to her children is a little difficult. She wants to wait to explain the full situation, once she has all the facts. “Mommy has to take care of some business in National City, so grandma is going to stay with you guys for a few days. I’ll call as soon as I can. I need you to be good.”

She directs this at Eilis and Orla in particular, the two known for instigating their siblings. “Yes mommy,” they promise. Somehow she doesn’t find herself entirely trusting those too innocent smiles, but she’ll believe them for the time being.

With kisses and hugs exchanged, she is in the car five minutes later bound for her heart and home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can join me for [ _wholesome, fun 😉._](https://sappho-mia.tumblr.com)


	2. we can't make any promises, now can we?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Thank you!

Her fingers drum rhythmically against the wheel as she winds her way through rolling hills, watching as the sky bleeds from purple to pink and orange. The sun blooms on the horizon, peeking between the hills, gold petals stretching across the horizon. The darkness of night fades away as peaches, roses, ambers and magentas mix in the sky, and she never tires of the sight.

She remembers her surprise the first time she saw a sunrise on Earth, so different from back on Krypton. Of the things she has gained since losing her home planet, sunrises are amongst her favorite. While her heart will forever ache and mourn the loss of Rao, she has this brilliant yellow star to warm her and imbue her with strength, she hadn’t known possible.

Watching the world wake up doesn’t get old. Her lips curl into a soft smile as she watches the sun soar higher into the sky, tangerine hills fill her vision and the rosy glow of dawn brings her peace. For the first time in six months, the start of a new day doesn’t mean crippling loneliness and the longing for an intimacy only one can fill. She has hope and that’s not nothing. The hope blossoming in her chest reminds her of ten years ago when the fall out from her secrets hurt someone who gave her access to their life, while she barred her from knowing her true self. She and Lena decided to start a new chapter, one without all of the lies shrouded in secrecy.

* * *

_Kara wrings her hands nervously when she spots Lena, sitting alone, away from the celebrations likely engaging some self-flagellation. She isn’t crying, then again that hasn’t ever been her style. As of late, she preferred to suffer in silence. Lena holds it in like a Luthor, only releasing her anguish within the privacy afforded to her in her penthouse._

_She hesitantly approaches- - aware that things are different from a year ago. They aren’t on terrible terms any longer, but it doesn’t mean they’ve healed the gaping wound still bleeding in their relationship. There has been betrayal on both of their behalves and she wants to put an end to it. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and it is unlikely Lena will take another step closer, not after taking the biggest one and admitting she was wrong. She stood on Kara’s doorstep, face flickering with a thousand emotions, eyes pleading for understanding, and Kara could never turn her away. She promised after all to be there._

_Holding the role of Lena’s best friend for four years, she is in a better position than most to know how much it cost Lena’s pride to come to Kara, to Supergirl- - turning her back on her family once again. Kara can’t say she was the most receptive, a tad frosty in her welcome, but she was tired of all the pain they inflicted on each other. She had already lost one friend and she was damned if she would lose another if it was within her ability to repair the damage._

_With a few controlled breaths as she psychs herself up, mentally steeling herself for potential rejection, she finds her legs are moving of their own accord, heading straight for Lena. She hasn’t prepared any words or anything, but apparently her brain knows what she wants. She stops short of the dark haired woman, standing awkwardly in front of her, hovering. “Hey,” she murmurs, suddenly shy in Lena’s presence._

_She no longer knows how to interact with the woman after their tempestuous history this last year, many of their interactions were borderline hostile, or Kara unknowingly playing into Lena’s hand before everything exploded. So much went wrong and to prevent all of it, all Kara had to do was tell the truth long before Lex happily gloated as he lay dying- - happy to deliver one last final blow to his sister. Kara willingly accepts her portion of the blame for what has happened to their friendship, once so strong and secure, and not hanging on by tethers—twisted and frayed, close to snapping. However, the other half does sit squarely on Lena’s shoulders. She fell back on her conditioned response to betrayal, not that Kara blames her for that. But in the end, neither of them is an innocent victim in this mess they created that spiraled out of control._

_Lena glances up, her eyes ringed red and her cheeks flushed. She licks her lips, eyes flicking away unable to meet her gaze. “Hey,” she finally returns, voice soft and whispery. Kara reads the guilt embedded in the lines of Lena’s face, as visible as any ink. She wishes she could erase it, smooth out the creases, and remind Lena that her family’s actions are their own._

_Kara takes a seat beside her, thankful she has changed out of her suit. Supergirl has caused enough of a rift in their friendship and she would rather interact with Lena as simply Kara, though she’s not sure there’s much of a distinction for Lena. “I’m sorry.”_

_Lena’s head snaps up as her eyes narrow and her forehead crinkles. Confusion swirls in her eyes, the green darkening. “Sorry for what?”_

_“You know,” she waves her hand. “Your mother and brother.” She may feel one way about the xenophobic members of the Luthor family, but they are Lena’s family. They raised her and that in turn informed the person she became. Her ideals strayed from theirs and she had to get off the train. Kara gets it— having forgotten at times her own struggles to reconcile the truth of her family with what she remembers of them, not wanting to tarnish the memories she had left._

_But even Kara knew she was loved. Something sinister was afoot in the Luthor household from the start. Lex derived great pleasure from his psychological games with his little sister, taunting and tormenting her, reminding her she had no one but him. And Kara had pushed her back to him._

_“Why? You’re a Super and we are Luthors.”_

_She winces at the reminder of her own folly and righteousness, words said in the moment, but words said with conviction, all the same. She created a boundary and she regrets allowing her own prejudice against members of Lena’s family get the better of her in that situation. She has never viewed Lena, contrary to what she told Lena, the same as her relatives. Telling her that someone from her family shouldn’t be asking that of someone from Kara’s family was a below the belt tactic, and it was the first time guilt churned in her stomach for the two masks she wore. She watched Lena reel from the shock, quickly composing herself to conceal her true emotions— the pain she experienced when it hit her that Supergirl didn’t trust her. And Kara has come to realize that Lena was right. As Supergirl she lacked trust in Lena beyond coming to her rescue with science and her own ingenuity._

_She hung around Lena and allowed her to form two different and separate relationships with whom she believed were two people, who were ultimately a single person. At times she barely succeeded in keeping her identities from slipping into each other when she was around Lena. In the end, she continued to lie and deceive Lena as it fit her needs and then she ran out of time— or time caught up to her._

_It was deception. After the Reign crisis, any bonds of good will and trust dissolved between Supergirl and Lena. It hadn’t left her with good feelings to have her alter ego and best friend at odds with each other, but the contention was there all the same, boiling beneath the surface. Sometimes she wondered if Lena intentionally blocked out any potential connections between Supergirl and Kara, somehow sensing something larger at work. Kara had unintentionally and purposefully exposed herself many times in Lena’s presence and still… nothing. Though there was that time when Kara flew her in civilian clothing after the poisoning incident and Lena swore it was her. Of course, Kara blocked that connection, shutting it down before Lena could put the pieces together._

_Yet, Lena was still Lena. She reacted the way she had been taught. Luthors protected themselves from anyone who could potentially hurt them and that usually resulted in them hurting someone else. However, Lena never hurt her permanently. She could’ve done worse like expose her identity, fire her before she sold the company, or killed her. But she didn’t. She protected Kara even after all of her many lies._

_Kara resists the urge to reach out and comfort Lena— the way she would have before all of this when Lena welcomed her touch. Things are different and she has struggled to accept that this isn’t a problem with an easy solution. Their relationship had never been tested like this and she was at a loss for how to move forward._

_She chews on her lip as she thinks over her response. She has a tendency to speak before she processes her own words, and she doesn’t want her mouth to get away from her this time. “I shouldn’t have said that you. It was wrong to use your family history against you as if my family doesn’t have a long list of their own transgressions.” She swallows back her pride, ready to strip back a few layers for Lena. She wants to preserve what she can.“I know what it feels like to be burdened with your family’s shame and bear the weight of their actions. I don’t mean with Kal. My family back on our planet wasn’t as righteous or good as I believed them to be for so long. It says something that Kal and I were the only ones sent to Earth and everyone else left to suffer the fate of Krypton.”_

_Sure her parents managed to save the city of her birth, but one city compared to the loss of billions doesn’t make up the difference of years of reckless abuse and suppressing the truth._

_Kara had thought the world of her parents, her aunts and uncles until she discovered they weren’t the morally upstanding people she thought them to be. Her parents and Kal’s knew all along and prepared to save their children and then burdened them with being the last of their race on a planet where they looked like the inhabitants but they weren’t like them._

_“I love them even if they contributed to the destruction of our home by doing nothing to stop it or created things that hurt other people. It hurts to know they aren’t perfect, but you can still love them or care for them even if they’ve done some morally reprehensible things. I wouldn’t fault you for it. Family is confusing and hard. You don’t get to choose who you love as much as it would simplify things.”_

_It’s like loving Lena. She chose to become her friend and to care for her. At first she thought it was a platonic love, soft and warm like Lena herself, until she realized that it occupied most of her heart, seeping into all of the tiny crevices. She had to examine her own past actions and she couldn’t explain them without that last bit to fill in the blanks._

_Lena’s brows dip, several emotions whirl in her emerald orbs, not that she can read the meaning of them now. Once, she knew Lena quite well. She knew what the clenching of her hands meant, the wry twist of her lips, the impassive stare, the twitch of her eye, and the subtle change in her tone. Before her was a different Lena, someone who had walked the path between light and dark, struggling to do the right thing. She understood her motivations and sympathized with her reasoning to a point, but Lena had gone about it in the wrong way. Ripping away someone’s agency in order to create a world without pain and suffering wasn’t the solution. Emotions were one of the best parts about earth._

_It wasn’t Lena’s intention to hurt anyone. In fact, it was the curtain being pulled back, exposing her brother for the monster he is that made her realize she picked wrong. She made a mistake._

_And part of Kara would always feel responsible for setting these events into motion. The night Mxy showed up and turned everything on its’ head, changed everything. She arrived at the conclusion that Lena was the one responsible for her own decision making- - regardless of anything Kara had done. Working with Lex was a choice she actively made, knowing what she did about her brother. But it was Kara’s lies that made her vulnerable, ripe for the picking._

_“How do you do it?”_

_Kara tilted her head, the familiar crinkle appearing between her brows. “Do what?”_

_“Stay in the light, retain this inherent positivity, forgive people for what they’ve done.” Lena’s gaze darts away as she wipes her palms on her jeans. Forgiveness has never been one of her attributes, and forgiving Kara for keeping her secret is hard. It means letting go of the past and freeing herself from the hate and doubt that’s clouded her vision. She’s never really forgiven someone. The people in her life before Kara didn’t merit such consideration._

_Kara remains silent for a moment, unsure if it is a rhetorical question or something her former friend seeks the answer to. She decides to reply even if it isn’t what she was after. “You know I’m not always positive.” She has garnered a bit of a reputation for being a happy spirit and always exhibiting kindness. Most people couldn’t fathom her doing anything horrible or selfish, which isn’t true. “Last year during Crisis, I lost hope. I couldn’t believe we would defeat the anti-Monitor or that we would recover all that we lost. Ironic really, but with all of our losses and the loss of the whole fucking multiverse, it was too much. I mean the fact that Lex of all the goddamn people,” she grits her teeth, her hands forming fists. “He was there and he certainly wasn’t helping, and he rewrote his own history to escape his situation, turning himself into some sort sort of savior.” It irked the hell out of her. Lex was always squirming his way out of everything. It was worse that he turned himself into this paragon of virtue, awarding himself the Nobel Peace Prize and making her his lackey as if she would affiliate herself with the likes of him._

_Lena snorts and Kara glares at her. “I’m not laughing at Lex escaping his rightful punishment, but you swearing. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard you utter a single expletive. You normally say things like golly.”_

_Kara deflates, shoulders sagging. “I-I- most of the time I don’t. That is true. Sometimes the situation warrants it. Lex got to live and O-Oli,” her lips tremble over his name. She hasn’t thought about her fallen friend in a while._

_“Oliver Queen?” Lena wasn’t a genius for nothing. She had seen the same telecast as everyone else about the fallen hero from Star City._

_She nods. “We were friends. Outwardly, you wouldn’t assume someone like him to be a hero and he could be rough around the edges, but he was a good man. He sacrificed himself not once but twice for the whole multiverse. I don’t know that I could’ve done it and worse, he has a wife and two kids. When he died, it was— there aren’t a whole lot of words to describe the feeling. He was a member of our team and he holds an honorary position because we can’t forget him. He saved us all and restarted the universe. It was indescribable.”_

_“I’m sorry.” She means it. Before and after Crisis, she swore not to care for Kara, to tuck all of her feelings (the good ones) into a box and put them away. Hate and vengeance fueled her at the sting of yet another betrayal in a long line of them. She couldn’t afford to have the warm and fuzzies for Kara, to be affectionate, and to forget three years of lies stacked on top of each other. She had to turn that side of her off. Her conscience went right along with it. She feels stupid for partnering with her brother when she knows better than anyone aside from maybe Superman, what he is cable of and that he’s a lying sack of shit—incapable of changing for anyone. He only needed her to do the things he couldn’t do and used her spite and desire to fix the world for his own gain. Siding with him was less about picking sides and more about knowing her ally. She knew she could never really trust her brother._

_Though none of that matter when her boxes began to fail her. Her real feelings began to slip out. Jeremiah dying changed something, sparked an emotional revolution inside of her, and she felt compelled to reach out. It was awkward and she lacked confidence, unsure where they stood after the balcony incident. There had been zero communication. Contrary to what she believed, seeing Kara in pain didn’t feel good. At one time, she thought it would make her happy, feel as if they were even. But it didn’t. Instead she wanted to lessen Kara’s pain, which was why she gifted the book. Their current circumstances prevented her from offering real comfort, but she wanted Kara to know she was thinking of her._

_“We do our jobs and risk our lives, and yeah sometimes we are seriously injured or die but survive due to unforeseen events, and then we repeat it all over again. It just never sinks in that this could be the mission we don’t come back from. I don- - no I can’t lose anymore friends from this job.” She says tearfully, pain shadowing her face. Losing Lena was a blow she hadn’t anticipated, but she expected it if Lena were to ever learn her secret. Her fear of losing her best friend did more damage than being honest would have._

_She can’t go back and change her choice. But she can choose to move forward and start again._

_Lena scoots closer, placing her hand over Kara’s, squeezing gently. “W-we can’t go back, but I don’t want to be stuck anymore. I want to move forward, away from the bitterness and anger. The person I’ve become is so far removed from who I want to be. I realized that when I was talking to Andrea. I let all of those Luthor predilections for vengeance and anger take hold in me until I was doing things that while seeming right were wrong. I wanted to hurt you the way I was hurt and I did.”_

_Kara is aware. She felt the sting of Lena’s rejection and righteous fury. The betrayal was the worst in the end. She had trusted Lena, unaware of the rising anger and the behind the scenes plotting, and Lena trapped her and stole from her. It was cunning and a trademark Luthor move. Lena knew her enemy and she lured Kara into a false sense of security, but Kara was also willing to do anything for Lena. They are equally responsible. Kara wanted to make Lena happy and Lena wanted to get back at everyone for lying. And Kara has to admit that their, no her friends rallied around her._

_But Kara always knew who Lena was. She was there, just hiding out of view._

_“I understand.” And she really does. After the situation with Mxy, she realized it wasn’t that she wanted to erase Lena’s anger but she wanted to erase her own hurt and absolve herself of her crippling guilt. If there was a reality where she could have the best of both worlds, she would have taken it. She was close choosing one when inevitably it all went very wrong. She wanted Lena in her life, specifically a Lena who didn’t despise her. She saw firsthand that they needed other and that both of their lives were improved from having the other around. The last alternate would still haunted her nightmares. Perhaps there is a reason they had to go through all of the pain. They had to learn how to stop up without the other there to defend and protect._

_“I should’ve told you a long time ago,” Kara admits. “But I don’t think there ever would’ve been a perfect time in our messed up lives. I chickened out so many times and it gave someone else the opportunity to wield it as a weapon against you.” Lex loves nothing more than his sick mind games and getting in the last word._

_“It does fill in some gaps and sometimes I think I blinded myself to the truth. I didn’t want to see the similarities because of what it would mean.”_

_“Gaps?”_

_“Yeah like those times you seemingly disappeared and I couldn’t get ahold of you.”_

_She smiles sheepishly. “That depends on if it was Earth-38 or Earth-1.” Lena isn’t even aware of the time that J’onn covered for her and pretended to be sick while Kara recuperated from her injuries. She doesn’t know how her privacy was violated and it’s another stab in the gut for Kara to realize all of the moral ambiguity in their unique situation. There are lies she needs to explain and seek forgiveness for, and it’s becoming clearer all of the damage she’s done and the people who were dragged into it._

_Lena gapes at her and then shakes her head, eyes full of wonder. “I don’t know I’m shocked. We did traverse universes during Crisis.”_

_“Bar- The Flash,” it isn’t really her place to reveal someone else’s secret identity even if Lena wouldn’t tell anyone. “We met my first year as Supergirl and then he called on my services for the first time several months later. There were aliens and it was a whole thing require my expertise. They didn’t have experience with aliens on their Earth. There was the Nazi wedding diast-“_

_“I’m sorry, did you say Nazis?” Lena has to interrupt her ramble because it is a lot and she’s a little overwhelmed. She has begun to reconcile the image of Kara Danvers with that of Kara Zor-El/Supergirl, but there are so many things she doesn’t know. After the reveal by her asshole of a brother, too many pieces began to make sense like Kara’s reluctance to share her name as Supergirl or her constant disappearances, and the astonishing, accurate detail in her articles, or her vehement response in one of their earliest meetings to the alien detection device. It is odd to finally be in the know and picture Kara in the place of Supergirl._

_“Oh yeah, I guess that isn’t something you brush off easily. I’ll tell you about it later.” It was one of her more interesting adventures with her fellow heroes and one that could’ve had disastrous consequences if they had lost. “Sometimes I went over just so Barry, Oliver and I could hangout. They understood the whole hero thing and it was nice not having to hide.” Kara squeezes her eyes shut. “Shi-oot, pretend I didn’t say Barry’s name,” she pleads. Lena smiles and shakes her head, eyes crinkling with fondness._

_“Anyhoo back to my original point and to answer your question, no I’m not always happy. I get angry and I want to punch things. I want to scream until my throat is hoarse and never stop. Those first years on Earth weren’t pleasant for me, Alex, or Eliza. I hated school and had exactly one friend, who was murdered. I wasn’t particularly fond of Alex and the same can be said of her, and those feelings were heightened because we shared living spaces. I hated having to hide my abilities and I resented Cla-Kal.” She is on a roll today with revealing secret identities._

_“I know Clark Kent is Superman. It wasn’t that difficult to figure out. Clark shows up National City at the same time as Superman.” Lena shoots her the patented ‘I’m a genius’ look._

_Kara has to give her that. “Yeah, well our relationship wasn’t always what it is now. We had issues in the beginning when he left me with the Danvers. I was supposed to take care of him and because of my pod getting knocked off course, he didn’t need me. I was purposeless and felt as if I failed my family. He wanted me to blend in and be a normal kid. I didn’t know how to do that and having powers made things harder.”_

_“I’ve always thought Superman was kind of a dick.”_

_Kara laughs and she feels the contraction of her stomach muscles. It feels good to laugh with Lena again, to not treat her like she’s a villain. She isn’t. It was easier to think of her like that instead of her gentle, kind friend with a pure heart, who filled her office and bought a company for her— pretending it was a good business move. “He can be.”_

_“I am sorry for trapping you in the Fortress of Solitude and for abusing your trust and for refusing to listen to you. You were trying to help me and I was unable to let you in. I fell into my brother’s trap and realized too late he was still the same narcissistic megalomanic he has always been, and he preyed upon me because it was easy. I had pushed everyone- - really just you away.” She sighs, raking her fingers through her messy hair. “I didn’t choose him for anything reason than I knew I could never fully trust him again. There was no way he could hurt me more than he already had. Aligning myself with you would’ve opened me up to hurt when I wanted to be an island or Switzerland. We hurt each other in the end and I’m so sorry.”_

_“No,” she shakes her vehemently. Lena’s face falls. “No, I mean well yeah, but I am sorry too for how things turned out. Y-you well I mean you weren’t in the right, but you were reacting. If I had told you especially before your asshole of a brother, you would’ve never felt cornered and vulnerable. If anything I put you in more danger by leaving you in the dark. I kept telling myself I was protecting you, but I was really doing it for myself.”_

_Lena is silent for a moment, eyes flickering to Kara every few seconds. Kara shifts, pulling and twisting her fingers as she awaits for Lena’s response. She has the feeling that this will either be the end or a new beginning for them. And she’s not sure what Lena will choose. Lena sighs and takes Kara’s hands in her own, thumb rubbing small circles to calm Kara. “Maybe we could just both be sorry and go from there?”_

_Kara likes the sound of that. So much energy has been spent persecuting Lena and cutting her out of her life that she is tired. She wants her friend back. It’ll never be like it was, but maybe there’s a chance for something better to replace what was lost. “Do you want to get some coffee? I don’t know about you but I could go for some.”_

_Lena’s red painted lips curve up and Kara has missed that smile. It is soft around the edges and meant solely for her. “Coffee sounds good.”_

* * *

It wasn’t easy for them to regain that trust they lost, but in the end they had built something better. There were feelings that went beyond the kind one felt for their platonic friend, and she felt silly for not realizing sooner she was in love with Lena. Hell, she had been in love with the other woman for longer than she knew. They were both oblivious and pursued other relationships, not considering for a moment why it felt wrong, but just a smile or a hug from the other felt right. Kara hadn’t recognized the stirrings of love because it had manifested differently than the friendly or familial loves she had. It turned out she hadn’t experienced the feeling of being in love, which was why she was blind to it. It put an interesting spin on her previous relationships and she had to do a lot of reflecting.

It makes her laugh now, thinking back on that time in her life. Everything was confusing from the butterflies fluttering in her stomach to the way her palms sweat when she was in close proximity to Lena. It hit her like a semi one day that she didn’t think of Lena as just a friend, she wanted more. It was why she hated watching Lena and James together and why she defended Lena against everything even if there was a kernel of truth.

She presses answer on the screen when she sees Alex calling. “Hey Alex,” she yawns.

“How far are you?”

“I’m closing in on the city limits now, so it won’t be too long, maybe twenty or thirty minutes.”

“Good, okay, Lena hasn’t woken up, so you don’t need to hurry. I just wanted to check in on you.”

There is that warm feeling in her chest again. She and Alex have come such a long way in the last twenty-five years, and it still amazes her how fiercely she loves her sister. “You don’t need to worry. I drove the speed limit the whole time. I needed the time to think.”

“Ahh sunrise, your favorite time to reflect,” and Kara has to smile. Alex knows her well. “How are the kids?”

“Probably bound to get into some mischief. There have been a few kerfuffles.”

Alex chortles. “God Kara, I swear you’re from a different century. Who uses the word kerfuffle?” She laughs at the ridiculousness of it.

Kara pouts.

“Are you pouting? Don’t bother answering, I already know. How was Oona doing with it?”

She sighs. “Oona had a nightmare last week that we were all on the plane when it crashed. She woke up screaming and crying, and refused to sleep in her own bed for the rest of the week. Which inevitably-“

“Brought the others to your bed.”

“Liam,” she sighs at the mention of her son. At six, he has the least amount of understanding of the situation. “Bless him for his innocence, he doesn’t get it like the others do.”

She hated watching his eager face stare out their front window when she came home from work every evening, his green eyes constantly searching for his mother who never returned home. It broke her heart to watch each day as his shoulders drooped lower, his smile dimmed, and the light inside of his eyes died.

That was her breaking point. She had to get them all out of that sad house with too many memories and somewhere that they didn’t see phantom Lena’s around every corner.

“And Orla and Eilís?”

She groans at the mention of her criminal masterminds. She was mischievous child herself and they’ve certainly inherited the brains from both sides of their family. “Ugh, they’ve been acting out. Oona and Eilís have been fighting and Eilís broke Oona’s telescope. She claims it was an accident, but Oona said it was on purpose. Orla, she has been using her abilities and convincing her siblings to do the same.” They each only really have strength and speed, but it is enough to make menaces out of the four of them. She is thankful the rest won’t appear until the onset of puberty.

“That bad?”

“Yes,” she replies. “They- we,” she amends immediately. “We miss Lena. There’s a gaping hole where she fits into the family and damnit,” she smashes her fit into her leg, aware of how easily she could break anything in her car. “None of this is fair.”

“I know Kar, but she is here. She is safe and she’s going to be okay.”

And at the moment that is what Kara needs. She needs her sister’s reassurances that everything will turn out fine. With her luck, something is bound to be wrong, but she won’t dwell on the ifs. She just needs to get to Lena.

The lot is mostly empty, and it is no wonder why. It is just after seven in the morning. She takes in steady breaths as she maneuvers her way around the hospital, following Alex’s directions until she reaches room 516. She closes her eyes and with a shuddering sob places her hand on the door, the door that is the only thing standing between her and her wife.

The door opens to reveal Alex with a sympathetic smile and arms open for one of their sister hugs. She falls into her comforting embrace, crying for herself, for Lena, and for their children. Her eyes are squeezed shut, unwilling to open and break the spell. She can’t bear another disappointment. Alex pulls back, grabs her hand, and tugs her over to the bed. Kara follows blindly. “It’s okay Kara. I promise. Open your eyes.”

One eyelid opens to reveal a brilliant blue, followed by the other. She gasps, her shaking hand reaches out to clutch Lena’s still one. She laces their fingers and her ears tune into the familiar steady rhythm of Lena’s heart. She brings her wife’s palm to her lips, placing a soft kiss on the warm skin. She glances up at her sister with wet eyes and mouths ‘thank you’. Alex leaves her sister with a squeeze of her shoulder, promising to check in on her later.

“Oh Lena,” she whispers tenderly, love blossoming on her face. “I’ve missed s-so much.”

Her knuckles gently graze Lena’s cheek, feeling the softness of it. There are no bruises or apparent injuries, and she has to wonder how she survived. Where has she been? These are questions she’ll ask her later after she’s woken up, but for now she will relish having her wife with her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I write a lot of angst, I swear it's me channeling my fifteen year old self. So be prepared for this to be angsty, but I promise everything will eventually work out. But yeah a mid season 5 Lena is definitely not a fan of any version of Kara. Honestly, I feel like she 'hated' Kara more than Supergirl.  
> Also, the kids ages are as follows. Oona and Eilís are 9, Orla is 7 and Liam is 6.


	3. is it too soon to do this yet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some angst

_6 Months Ago_

_Lena Luthor grumbles as her wife’s alarm starts blaring. She buries her face in Kara’s golden mane, pulling her closer. She refuses to untangle their legs, not ready to start this day. Her wife sinks into her chest and she sighs at the warmth that radiates from her. She has her own personal heater and never finds herself cold when Kara is around._

_She lifts up and brushes her lips against her wife’s temple, planting a trail of them down the side of her face until she reaches her neck. Her lips hover over Kara’s pulse point, as she enjoys the way her wife squirms in anticipation. She places the softest of kisses before sucking, her tongue swirling over the rapidly flushing skin. As horrible as it sounds, she takes advantage of her wife’s solar flares, leaving her mark all over tan skin. Seeing the skin purple thrills her and she knows as much as her wife complains about covering it up, she loves it just as much. Kara bucks against Lena, moaning as Lena’s hands trail down her body._

_Lena slides her hand up Kara’s camisole, traveling up her ribs before brushing the underside of her breasts. Kara gasps and Lena grins smugly as she nips at the delicate skin. She feels the rush of desire flood her system, a wild fire rages within her as she climbs on top of her wife. Kara’s pupils are dilated and her lips are parted as she pants pathetically. Lena loves her this way, loves the way she can control her wife’s body, coax her to multiple orgasms, and never tire of it._

_She claims Kara’s lips, which are hot and rough against hers as they battle for dominance, as teeth and tongues collide. The tentative brushes evaporated between them a long time ago and when she kisses her wife now, it is with full confidence. She buries her hands in those blonde waves, bringing them closer together as she can’t get enough._

_Fire licks up her spine, the heat enveloping her as she removes her hands from her wife’s hair and tugs the camisole off. Her hands immediately cover Kara’s beautiful mounds. Kara moans into her mouth. Lena rocks her hips downward, adding a little friction to work Kara into a frenzy. If she is to go two weeks without her wife in her bed, she damn well is going to have this memory to satisfy her every night._

_Kara opens her mouth and Lena sinks her tongue inside, exploring the depths, pressing into the roof, running over her teeth before she tangles their tongues. Soon both of their moans and groans fill the large bedroom as their hips move in tandem. Kara’s hands rest on her hips as she gyrates on her wife. Her touch burns in the best way possible, and Lena pulls back breathless from it all. The bright blue has darkened considerably as Kara drags them down the length of Lena’s body._

_Her thumbs brush against Kara’s dusky pink nipples. She smirks as Kara jerks at the touch. Her wife is almost ready. She crawls down her body and stares at her breasts. Sometimes she wonders why she denied herself this for so long. They could’ve been doing this from the start because she had definitely noticed her wife’s glorious body, loving the way material clung to her arms or her thighs. She just didn’t know how much muscle Kara was packing then._

_Kara always tasted sweet and smelled delicious like vanilla and cinnamon. Lena couldn’t resist her._

_Her eyes are fixated on the darkening areolae, feeling quite pleased with herself. After carrying two children, her wife’s breasts are a little fuller, but still perfectly in Lena’s hands as if they were made with her in mind. Her fingers pinch and tease at the sensitive flesh. She squeezes and massages the soft masses. This close up, she could see the dusting of freckles adorning the top of her chest from their recent vacation to the Caribbean._

_She captures a nipple with her mouth, while continuing to squeeze and tease the other peak. “Lena,” she breathes, the hint of pleading in her voice. “Please.”_

_Lena feels a rush of possessiveness overcome her as her eyes connect with Kara’s. No one knows her the way Lena does or has seen her burgeoning with their children, begging Lena to make her cum. She flattens her tongue against the pert bud as Kara shivers. Her other hand continues to knead at the twin. Her teeth graze the nipple as Kara whimpers helplessly underneath her._

_She reaches down, fingers slipping under her wife’s panties to brush across her soaking sex. An animalistic growls escapes her as her fingers swirl around the tight bundle of nerves. Kara mewls salaciously as Lena’s fingers brush against her slip, her back arches, and Lena uses that to slide two fingers inside. She nips before sinking her teeth into the sensitive flesh and Lena repeats the action, slightly harder, before flattening her tongue to soothe the skin._

_Lena thrusts her fingers upwards, rewarded with Kara’s keening cries, her tongue dancing over the other nipple, having switched her attentions. Kara’s head is thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, lips dark pink._

_As Lena thrusts again, adding a third finger, Kara’s hips fly off the bed. She counts herself lucky she hasn’t literally flown off as that has happened._

_Her motions are hard and fast as Kara bites her lips to hold in her screams. Lena adds fuel to the fire as she brings her head down to her wife’s glistening lips, mouth watering at the sight of the pink folds. She brushes her noses against the muscular thighs, fingers slowly pumping into her wife, to hold off her climax. She loves bringing her to the edge, only to stop, prolonging the inevitable orgasm. She nips at the silky skin as Kara’s body vibrates and tenses, waiting for her next move._

_She sucks at the sensitive skin of her wife’s inner thigh, marking it with her mouth, counting her blessings for solar flares, and then laves the abused area with her tongue. Moving closer, her tongue traces the outside of Kara’s pussy. Kara’s legs clench as she trembles. “Lena, baby please no games, just love me.”_

_The time for foreplay is over as she finally brushes her tongue over Kara’s clit in a long, firm stroke. Kara moans, her body jerking up to meet Lena’s mouth. Her tongue traces over every crevice, cementing everything to her memory. Her tongue rolls over Kara’s clit and Kara gasps digging her heels into Lena’s shoulders._

_The sweet, tanginess of her wife’s essence fills her mouth as she circles around her clit before taking it between her lips and firmly sucking. Kara cries out desperately, followed by a loud keening of “oh Rao.” Her fingers thread into Lena’s dark hair, pushing her face deeper into her. The flavor of her made her head swim as Kara’s juices flooded her mouth. Kara is close._

_Lena pulls back to blow over the exposed area of Kara’s lips. Kara throws her head back, muttering unintelligibly in her native language. She catches a few of the words, but her attention is focused elsewhere. Lena closes her lips over Kara’s clit and she starts to suckle the bud. Long, deep, and hard, she feels her wife’s fingers dig into her scalp._

_Kara’s muscles ripple and tremble as Lena thrusts her fingers in, feeling her silky walls beginning their tale-tell flutter as she clamps down. Her body spasms as she pulses around Lena’s fingers. Wetness flows into her mouth, and she savors the taste of sweet nectar. She hears heavy breathing slowly settle, fingers releasing her hair._

_She removes her fingers from inside her wife, licking her arousal. “I love you.” She tells her, kissing her before getting out of bed to prepare for the day. They don’t have time for Kara to reciprocate, but that’s fine with her. It’ll make their lovemaking all the more explosive when she returns._

_By the time she is done showering, her wife is downstairs feeding their four little gremlins. “Oona, Eilís do you have your permission slips?” They bob their twin heads. Despite being almost identical, they have different colored eyes. They each have one blue and one green, except they are reversed. It made it easy for their mothers to tell them apart when they were infants._

_She kisses Orla’s golden tresses, the reason for her name. “Princess, are you ready for your spelling test?” They have worked endlessly with their daughter on her spelling._

_“Yes mom,” she answers, stuffing her mouth with scrambled eggs._

_She has tried to ingrain table manners into all of her children, but they’ve taken after Kara in that regard. She doesn’t mind too much as she finds it all endearing if not a little repulsive at times, watching them consume large quantities of food._

_“And what about you Liam? You don’t have too much longer left in kindergarten.” She can’t believe her baby is in school. They decided together four was their magic number, especially when they found out he was a boy. He completed their family, so every milestone with him has been just that more emotional. Now, there is just two months left of the school year. When she returns, it’ll be closer to one month._

_“I like recess and P.E.”_

_Kara snorts into her coffee as their daughters dissolve into a cacophony of giggles. She can’t expect much from Liam. He has made his dislike of sitting still for hours on end well known. She shrugs helplessly, taking her seat next to Kara. She pecks her cheek, loving the beautiful blush filling her cheeks. It doesn’t grow old._

_“Mommy, do you really have to go? Can’t you stay here with us?”_

_Lena smiles sadly at her oldest as she grabs a slice of toast from the stack. “I’m sorry little love, but mommy has to kick some butt. This is really important, otherwise I’d never leave any of you.”_

_She dislikes nothing more than being away from her family. After craving the intimacy of a close-knit family for essentially the first thirty years of her life, she does her best to not take them for granted and to devote as much of her time to her wife and children as she can. She refuses to expose her children to the type of life she grew up in. “I’ll be back soon enough and then it’ll be your summer break.”_

_It coaxes a tiny smile from Oona, not one of her gold star ones, but it is better than the frowns on her siblings’ faces. “Oh come on, cheer up, I’ll bring back loads of presents.”_

_She catches her wife smirking and shaking her head out of the corner of her eye. She knows she can be a softy with their kids unless they’ve caused some serious trouble, then she is on all of them, ready to dole out punishments. Kara is rarely able to resist their pouts, the same way Lena and pretty much the rest of their family can’t resist Kara’s._

_Kara slides her hand into Lena’s lap, twining her fingers with hers. Lena squeezes her hand. Kara isn’t all that happy about the timing of the trip either, but she understands. She knows that she always has a personal hero in her wife and all Kara wants is to be there for her whenever possible to love and protect her. “So are you excited about the trip to the science museum?”_

_The distraction works as intended and Oona and Eilís talk over each other, explaining all the different exhibits. “Did you know your mom crashed into the museum once?”_

_Kara gasps and slaps Lena’s arm as her cheeks darken. “You promised not to say anything,” she mumbles._

_“Oh you’re so cute,” she taps Kara’s nose. Her wife is too adorable for words. “Yeah, it wasn’t one of her finer moments. She was more disgusted that she landed on a poster of your uncle.”_

_She doesn’t shy away from talking about her family with their children. She would rather be the one to inform them than some snot nosed brat at their school._

_“When do you think we will be able to fly?” She walked right into that one._

_With her children sharing half of her chromosomes, she can’t say what abilities they’ll manifest or when. So far it has been limited to strength and impenetrable skin. When they were toddlers, sometimes she and Kara found them floating, but as they’ve gotten older, they can’t access that part of their powers. She isn’t looking forward to them gaining super speed. She has heard all of Kara’s horror stories from her mother and sister and that was just one person, she has four._

_“I don’t know,” Kara responds, slathering on extra butter. “A lot of your abilities really won’t develop until puberty according to your Uncle Clark.” Kara had already started puberty by the time she arrived on Earth. “Some of them might take even longer to manifest and learn to control.” It did take her wife an inordinate amount of time to hone her abilities and sometimes she still slipped. “Just have patience and enjoy what you have for now.” She has asked Kara about what it was like when she first discovered her abilities. Kara answered with loud. She struggled with her sensitivity to everything and it took her a long time to focus and control her powers._

_Lena stays back to finish packing as Kara makes the school run. She kisses her little ones, holding them close a little longer than normal before waving goodbye from the front steps of their brownstone. She is going to miss her babies and hopes she doesn’t miss too much while she is gone._

_She zips up her suitcase, stationing it by the door as she updates the family calendar. She absolutely loves her wife, but Kara is forgetful. It isn’t her fault, but she is easily distracted especially if it involves food and sometimes Supergirl emergencies arise. She sends the calendar to Alex and Sam as a back-up in case Kara finds herself stretched thin. This is the longest she’ll be away and she doesn’t want Kara to feel stressed. Their children are a handful with the two of them there and she can’t imagine two weeks with all four of them on her own._

_Kara honks as she pulls in and Lena heads out to meet her, suitcase in tow. She waves off Kara’s attempts to get out and load the suitcase for her. She slides into the passenger seat, catching Kara’s free hand. She wants to keep their connection for as long as time will allow, which isn’t very long as National City for once is light on traffic as they head to the airport. “Please at least feed them a few veggies, they won’t hurt anyone.” Her wife thinks she is clever and sneaky, but she knows that when she is out of town, her family consumes large amounts of pizza and Chinese food._

_Kara gapes at her. “Wh-what? W-we eat green stuff.”_

_Lena rolls her eyes at the blatant lie. “Oh don’t even try that. I know you don’t. I installed a secret camera in the kitchen and we have the one next to the doorbell. I saw how many times delivery people showed up at our house.” She quirks a perfectly sculpted brow, and Kara smiles sheepishly._

_“I can’t help it if they want pizza and Chinese.”_

_“Gee, I wonder where they could’ve gotten that.”_

_“Alex,” she quickly retorts._

_“I’m telling her you’re blaming our children’s poor eating habits on her.”_

_“Fine something green and healthy,” she makes a face. Lena holds in her grin. She can’t believe any of this is hers. Sometimes her life seems like a dream, the best one possible. “I don’t want you skipping any meals while you’re away. I know how you can get and you’ve got to take care of yourself since I won’t be there to remind you.”_

_Her heart swells with an abundance of love and affection for this woman. “I love you,” she brings Kara’s hand to her lips. “I’m thankful everyday for you, darling.”_

_“Ditto honey, you are one of the best things about Earth.”_

_And that’s all that really needs to be said. Too soon for Lena’s liking they are pulling up to the drop-off zone. Kara leans over to kiss her, threading her fingers through her wife’s dark tresses. Her tongue slips past the seal of Lena’s lips, briefly dueling with hers before retreating. She pulls back, blue eyes sparkling as she stares at her as if she is the sun. Lena wipes away her lipstick from Kara’s mouth. “I love you so much and I’ll call you everyday darling.”_

_“I love you too. And I will be waiting like in the movies, eager and anticipating your call.”_

_Lena laughs, gently shoving her. “You’re a dork, but it is just one of many reasons why I love you.”_

_“Alright you better go, or I’ll never let you go.” Lena leans forward kissing Kara’s forehead as Kara wraps her arms around her. Kara kisses her ear, whispering sweet nothings and then they pull apart._

_Lena stands at the curb with a melancholic smile, watching her wife drive away, as the familiar ache appears. It disappears when she returns home, burrowing herself into Kara’s arms and hugging their children close. She tries to make their goodbyes quick so as not to prolong the pain. She would rather get it over with than have it come later._

_She does her best when she is away to not think of the blonde woman, but she finds reminders of her everywhere from food, to music, in nature, and just silly every day things. Her aura surrounds her and it is impossible to escape, not that she really minds. She would rather have and miss Kara temporarily than not have her at all._

_She sniffs the hoodie she pilfered from the blonde’s side of the closet, inhaling hints of vanilla and cinnamon. Putting that distance between them for almost a year, made her see how Kara filled her life with happiness and light, and when she was gone, all of that sunshine went away. There were no more eager blue eyes, the color of the sky there to profess how amazing she was and unlike her family. Going to her apartment that day, she didn’t know what to expect, but despite her reticence, Kara let her in and they went from there. She had thought she was better off without her in her life, but oh how wrong she was and how glad she was to be wrong. Their first hug after all that time made her cry. She needed Kara in her life like she needed air to breathe._

**_Lena: I love you_ **

**_Kara: I love you. See you soon_ **

**_Lena: No driving and texting_ **

**_;) Kara: Siri did it_ **

_She will let it slide. She did send the first text after all. She heads inside the airport, checking her bag, and then heads over to TSA._

_When the cabin loses air pressure, six hours later, Lena’s mind drifts to her family. She thinks of her wife, Kara, and her endless hope and faith. She thinks of her twins who are mini versions of herself and her wife. She thinks of Orla, her little princess who just lost her first tooth. And lastly, she thinks of Liam who wants to learn how to ride a bike this summer, and then it is all blackness._

* * *

“God Kara, when was the last time you left this place?” Alex pinches her nose as she enters the private room.

It has been a week since she received the call and arrived in National City. She flips off her sister. “I don’t smell… that bad.” She can admit she is a tad ripe, but hasn’t felt the need to leave the hospital.

Alex glares at her. “I will kick your literal ass if you don’t leave. I will stay here you while you go home, bathe, put on a different hoodie or whatever, brush your hair because you look terrible.”

“Fuck you,” she scowls. “I’m fine where I am.”

Alex huffs and crosses her arms. “Don’t make me call Mom.”

“You wouldn’t!” She hisses.

“Try me. You don’t have to stay away for long, but maybe get a few hours of sleep that aren’t in a hospital room because you look like shit.”

“Anyone ever tell you, you’re an asshole? Here I am, sitting at my wife’s bedside after believing her to have died six months ago and you-“

Alex covers her mouth. “You’re so dramatic. Lena is probably still unconscious because she would be coming back to this.” She gestures to Kara.

Kara’s mouth falls open. “Rude!”

“Hah! You didn’t disagree that you look and smell awful. Now go,” she points at the door. “I don’t want to see you until at least noon.”

Kara pouts. She hasn’t left Lena’s bedside longer than an hour. She uses that hour to eat and to video chat her children. She doesn’t want them seeing their mother like that. The doctors aren’t certain as to why Lena hasn’t woken up yet, and have conducted scans of her brain. Everything appears fine and she could wake up at any time. Kara just wants to be there when it happens, but her sister might be onto something.

She forgoes driving. At this time of day, it would take her an hour. She peers around to make sure no one can see her before speeding off. Thirty seconds later, she stands in front of her townhouse. They closed on it two weeks before her due date with the twins. Lena’s penthouse was fine for a newlywed couple, but it wasn’t a residence for raising children.

“Mrs. Luthor?” Kara curses under her breath, pivoting to face her across the street neighbor. “I thought that was you.” Mrs. DeAngelo is a good neighbor, if not extremely nosy. She is the neighborhood gossip, knowing everything there is to know about everyone within a three block radius. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yes,” she smiles falsely. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I moved out to Midvale to get away.”

“Right,” there is an awkward silence. Everyone knows what happens. That is the problem being married to such a prolific public figure. “Um, how are your little ones?”

“Oh, they’re okay. It’s been hard for them. I’m here alone for the time being.” She won’t divulge Lena’s alive status to anyone outside of her trusted circle, especially not gossips like her neighbor. The whole city would know within minutes. Their family deserves to heal in privacy and decide how to handle things from there, and she can’t do that without Lena. “I uh better get inside, but it was good seeing you Mrs. DeAngelo.” She flashes another smile, politely excusing herself as she rushes up the stairs.

She unlocks the house, her heartstrings tugging at the familiar click. She opens the door, stopping in the entrance. The house is stuffy and dusty in their absence. She had the utilities turned back on when she came back, but couldn’t bring herself to come here. It is strange being there without her wife or children. Normally, her children’s laughter bounces off the walls and the atmosphere is airy and homey. There is none of that. She opens all of the downstairs windows to air the house out and allow it to breathe after five months.

Her eyes linger over Lena’s office door. The room hasn’t been touched in the longest, none of them able to bring themselves to enter. She turns the knob and pushes. The space is as Lena left it that morning. Her desk is covered in paperwork, half-finished blueprints, family photos, and little trinkets Kara has gifted her over the years to add a sense of home. She promised Lena they would build home together and she wouldn’t be alone again. They created this home together, picking out frames and furniture, artwork to hang, and argued over appliances much to the amusement of her sister.

Her sister teased them about being typical u-haul lesbians. They had sped through the courtship stages and were married fairly quick, but it all felt right. There was never a moment she doubted Lena or Lena doubted her. They were in it together. And then they went straight to having children, both of them wanting to create a family of their own. This is theirs, everything they’ve worked to build.

Her fingers trail over the armchair by the fireplace. She and Lena would curl up in it, reading to each other and sneaking kisses with a crackling fire. Lena’s bookshelves she installed herself, are dusty, and Kara makes a mental note to hire someone to come in and clean. Normally she would do it herself, but just this once she will take advantage of her wife’s money. She doesn’t want to partake in any form of cleaning.

Her eyes are drawn to the family photo on the desk, the one from Orla’s birthday. Lena missed Liam’s and the twins’ birthdays. Orla’s front teeth were missing as she beamed happily from her mom’s lap. Kara sat next to Lena, pressed to her side with Liam in her lap, and there was a twin on each side. All of them had the biggest grins as they stared at the camera. It was taken about two weeks before Lena left. Kara hadn’t known she added it to her growing collection of family photos.

It often surprises her that someone who once struggled to be personable like Lena welcomed clutter and displayed photos everywhere. All of the kids’ school photos from the previous year were in one of those frames fitted for four. She picks it up and stares at her children. They’ve all grown so much in a year. Liam is on the verge of losing his first tooth. The twins’ faces have thinned some and she can’t fathom how in a few short years they’ll be teenagers. She isn’t ready. Lena promised she would be there for all of the sex and puberty talks, and she doesn’t think she can do it alone.

She crumbles to the floor, tears falling from her face. She wasn’t supposed to do any of this alone.

Years ago she thought she understood heartache after Mon-El, but what she felt for him is nothing in comparison to Lena. She searched for love in all the wrong places, clinging to people who only wanted specific parts of her, but never the full Kara. Lena, she embraced her and loved her for all of her, once she knew and accepted the truth. Lena liked her just the way she was.

She learned about Lena too. There were all these facets of themselves they hadn’t shared out of fear of revealing the brokenness in themselves. As Supergirl so many people asked her about her home world, if she missed it, and other personal questions she couldn’t answer. She didn’t want people to view her as anything besides the strong, confident persona of Supergirl. Lena had hidden her own pain, covering it with band-aids and hoping that would solve what happened to her growing up in the Luthor household. The emotional intimacy was something neither of them had shared with another person.

She had told Alex things here and there, but she could never fully bring herself to tell her everything. There were some things Alex couldn’t protect her from, and she tried to keep it away from her as much as possible. Lena understood though. Instead of keeping it all in, they let it all out. They talked about the good, the bad, the sad, the happy, and everything in-between. When she or Lena had a bad day, the other was there to hold them. She would sing to Lena as she cried in her arms, and then held her close as they drifted to sleep.

With Lena by her side, there was a flicker of hope, one strong enough to stand against the wind. Then it died and all that was left was darkness. There were four bright spots and they were what kept her going. Their family is their everything. The days where she sends her kids off to her mother’s, those are the ones where finds herself stuck at the bottom of a gorge, clawing her way out, unable to reach the top that feels millions of miles away. Yet, there is always someone there to tug her back, remind her that not everything is lost or hopeless, and she can keep going. She isn’t alone. She isn’t that little girl stuck in her pod.

Kara knows who she is. She has fought through her despair and discovered what she is made of- learning she can go on without her wife, she just doesn’t want to.

She leans against the desk, wiping away her tears. The room, although stuffy like the rest of the house, smells like Lena, like flowers. It is some custom blend she orders from Paris, combining a few different flowers. Running away to Midvale was what needed all those months ago, but with the scent of her wife wafting in the air, she realizes this is her home, this is her children’s home. She resolves to bring them back as soon as things are a little more settled. They need their normalcy back.

Eventually, she works her way up to her bedroom. She had stopped going in there and moved some of her things into the guest room before fleeing the city. How can you not see the person who is everywhere? Her hands tremble as she backs into the wall, maintaining control of her strength. She doesn’t need to create another hole. It was difficult explaining to the contractor last time how all the structural damaged occurred.

Nausea swirls in her stomach as her head swims with dangerous, unspoken thoughts. She can hear the rushing of blood, the thrum of her heart as it beads rapidly, and her black cloud of melancholy hovers over her, ready to pour on her. Only now is it occurring to her how much she avoided her life instead of living it. She manages to conjure up some courage, swallowing back bile as she enters her bedroom. This is the place she sees Lena the most from the wedding portrait hanging over the bed, to the unfinished novels sitting haphazardly on her nightstand, to the jewelry box on their dresser filled with rings and necklaces. Everywhere she looks, there is her wife and she remembers why she left. It was easy to convince herself that any day she would walk through the door.

She takes a deep breath, steeling herself because she is Supergirl, and she can’t run away from her problems any longer. Her time hiding is over. She goes straight to their luxurious shower that she and Lena constantly argued over because no one should pay that much for some plumbing, but it is absolutely heavenly. She sighs as the warm water hits her in all the right places.Her muscles relax under the water and the tightness dissipates for the moment. 

Maybe Alex is right. She won’t tell her that, it’ll only give her a big head.   
  
There are a lot of things from these last few months she won’t be telling anyone. She doesn’t even want to think of Lena’s reaction when she admits that their children have barely consumed any vegetables in her absence. They don’t get take-out every night, but they’ve ordered it more than they should have. Kara’s skills in the kitchen haven’t advanced beyond breakfast foods. There has been a lot of frozen chicken nuggets and pizza. Hopefully, she’ll forgive her and understand the extenuating circumstances. Eliza did at least fill her freezer once a month with casseroles.

And also she crosses her fingers that Lena will maybe not comment too much on the cat their children convinced her to get them. They were just so sad and it made them happy. She wanted nothing more than to make them happy after reality began to set in and the chances of Lena returning home decreased with each day.  


After her shower, she changes into a pair of leggings and another one of Lena’s MIT hoodies. Lena used to wear her NCU hoodies all of the time after she pilfered one from her years ago. It was funny they never wore their own college stuff. They were proud to sport each other's. They regularly stole each other’s sweaters, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. It really made her feel like half of a couple to do something as cliché as that. She just wants to feel Lena’s arms around her.

She crawls into bed and falls asleep within seconds, her last thought is of Lena and how she'll be back at the hospital as soon as she gets a few hours in. She is running on empty and a couple hours won’t hurt. 

* * *

The first time Lena wakes, she is positive she is dreaming. Her eyes don’t stay open longer than ten seconds before she is submerged once more into the darkness, but she remembers long, blonde hair.

She can’t remember who she knows with blonde hair like that. The second time, she manages to retain consciousness for fifteen seconds, but the pull is too strong. She was alone anyway. She is well acquainted with that feeling.

Each time, she is back in the darkness, she gets these flashes. None of it makes sense, and her memories are all jumbled up. Does she even know what her last memory is? She does know her name is Lena Luthor. That is the one fact she holds onto as she hides in her mind until she can figure out how to wake up. Other things gradually come back to her slowly until a fuller picture begins to form.

_She remembers her ‘family’, which is way too strong of a term to describe the Luthors. Still, they are all she has and she is in fact one of them. She recalls Kara, sweet, blundering, naive Kara._

_Her memories of her are the clearest and play on repeat in her mind. Kara was there filling in the holes of her life for four years, all the while lying to her, making a mockery out of her. Yes, her former best friend is Supergirl, except she didn’t learn that from the woman herself. Someone else told her, and Kara only told her later when it was too late for it to mean anything.  
_

_Things escalated from there and their friendship devolved into something else entirely._

_As the memories flow through her, her last one before she lost consciousness hits her._

_She is in her penthouse after a long day. It has been a day without Kara apologizing and begging her to forgive her as she has attempted multiple times. The quiet is discomfiting and the loneliness she experiences is worse than before Kara. She knows what it is like to have friends, to have someone to confide in, and now she has none of that.  
_

_It disappeared with a snap when the rose colored glasses were ripped off and she saw all the liars in her midst. Was it unfair to judge them all the same? Yes, but did she care? No. They all lied, whether it was their secret or not, and they helped Kara keep it from her._

_Lena spends her nights alone. It is preferable to the alternative. Even though she has agreed to work with her brother so long as it aligns with her current agenda, they don’t have the type of relationship where she would willingly spend time with him if she didn’t have to. They are using each other in typical Luthor fashion. She needs him, but it is really he that needs her. He recognizes that she is the smartest between the two of them, and it’ll be her that gets them to the final goal._

_What she doesn’t expect as she goes to grab a tea bag for her nightly cup is the arrival of Kara, or she supposes Supergirl, not that it makes much of a difference as it is all semantics in the aftermath of her identity reveal. The bitterness and anger toils inside of her and she just barely managed to reign it in. She has tried to examine it from Kara’s perspective, but she can’t. At the forefront is her own suffering and pain, and that is her focus. She can’t see beyond it._

_She rolls her shoulders back when she sees her, schooling her features. The meeting goes differently than she anticipated. For the first time there is some real steel behind Kara’s words because as much as she is Supergirl, she is first and foremost Kara. What is worse is hearing Kara essentially call her a villain, lumping her in with her brother and every other two-bit villain she faces on a daily basis._

_Pain flickers across her face as Kara flies away, and for the first time, she feels the stirrings of regret for how things have turned out. It isn’t strong enough to deter her from her current course of action, but it does cause some doubt to filter in.  
_

_For four years she had the support of Kara, had someone who believed in her. and befriended her in spite of their shared family history, which she didn’t even know to associate Kara with. She wishes she could forgive Kara, but she isn’t there or ready to let go of her feelings. Their friendship is tainted with lies that continued to build on each other and at the end of it, Lena was the one left looking like a fool._

Sound is the first sense to come back to her. She hears the steady beeping of a heart monitor and the quiet shuffling of someone nearby. Something dings like a phone and she hears a chair scuffing the floor, and quiet footfalls as someone starts pacing. The squeaking of sneakers is irritating, but strangely calming.

“What the hell?” Someone mutters, the voice distinctly female. She believes someone is tapping on a screen, maybe texting?

Her brows unconsciously furrow as she idly wonders where she is. She should’ve been in her penthouse, alone, at least she assumed that is her last known location. With her mother and brother out there, it is just as likely they’ve kidnapped her.

“Oona?” She thinks she recognizes the voice, but it is hard to tell with the haze clouding her mind. “Why did my phone alert me that you and your siblings are in Louisiana?” Her heart rate ticks up the slightest. “Yes, your watches have trackers. Did you honestly think mommy and I wouldn’t track your movements? It just takes a few minutes for the satellites to catch up with your movements.” She assumes the woman is on the phone. It would explain why she can’t hear the other end of the conversation. “Did you use your abilities? How do you know where Louisiana is anyway?” The confusion in her voice is evident and Lena swears she knows her voice. She has heard it several times. She just can’t get her thoughts to form coherently. The name is on the tip of her tongue.

Her eyes squeeze shut and her fingers clutch at material- a blanket? It takes a few tries, but suddenly her eyes are open and she can see again.

The first thing she is aware of after her time in the darkness is the overwhelming brightness of the fluorescent lights of a hospital? She has to blink a few times to clear her blurry sight.

And as her vision clears, the first thing she sees is Kara. Kara who called her a villain a few hours ago and told her she’ll take care of her the way she does any other villain. Kara, who never held her family legacy against her. Kara who has lied to her multiple times. What did she care if Kara viewed her the same as all the other Luthors?

Except Kara isn’t paying her the slightest attention, hasn’t noticed her at all. “No you can’t jus- what do you- I explicitly said no- the Big Easy? Who even taught you that?” She is pacing in circles, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I swear that you and your sisters and brother will be beyond grounded if you aren’t back at your grandmother’s in the next twenty minutes. I don’t ca-“

"K-Kara?" The blonde stumbles, whirling around to face her with those surprised blue eyes.

“Lena!” She smiles before blanching as it occurs to her she is still on the phone. She holds up a finger to Lena with an apologetic grin before turning around and hiding her face as she resumes talking. “Oona Grace, I don’t care to hear your excuses or that they’re the best beignets in the whole freaking world, you weren’t supposed to leave. You worried your grandmother. You are the responsible one and help keep your siblings in line- no it doesn’t make it better that you held your brother’s hand.”

Lena is confused. There is something different about the other woman, but her mind is still foggy. She bites her lip, head tilting as she observes the rapid pacing. Is her hair longer? Did she get new glasses? Is it the clothes?

“You planned this, which means that it is premeditated. I’ve already texted your grandmother and she knows what to do when you get back.” Her pacing halts as her posture tenses. “I- well- yes- it is her.” She runs her fingers through her hair. Seriously, how did she manage to have perfect hair all the time? Was that part of her powers? “I’ll explain it later. You are walking a dangerous path as it is and are currently risking eternal grounding.”

Who is Oona? Why would Kara be grounding her? Lena rubs her temples, feeling the onset of a migraine as she listens to Kara continue to speak. Nothing is making sense to her and she needs Kara to explain why the fuck she is in a hospital room.

“She would agree with me. She doesn’t even know about your new abilities. If I tell her, I know for a fact you would be in more trouble with her.”

Lena’s interest is piqued. Her free hand is moving as she talks with increasing frustration and Lena is mildly amused before she remembers why she shouldn’t be. She shouldn’t even be in a room, let alone- she glances around, really taking in her surroundings, a hospital room with Kara. What happened to her? How long has she been here? She needs Kara to finish the damn call and explain what is going on.   
  


All she can remember is finishing her tea before climbing into bed with a book. After that it is all just blank. There’s nothing there. 

“You can tell Eilís and Orla that you’ve all lost any and all fun privileges until decided otherwise.” Kara scoffs at the girl on the phone. “It is fair. Just because you don’t likesomething doesn’t mean it isn’t fair. I am not being mean and unreasonable. I trusted you and you abused that. You made a promise and broke it. Did you even complete your schoolwork for the day?” She pinches the bridge of her nose.

Lena catches her profile for a second, and there is something different about Kara Danvers. She frowns as she tries to figure it out.

“I could easily check. So you’ve been manipulating your grandmother too?” Kara rubs her face. She can see the visible stress in Kara’s body language and wonders what has happened for her to be like this. She wasn’t like this when they last saw each other. She was determined maybe, but this is something else. “I’ll text her and all four of you will complete the week’s worth of work you’ve neglected. I don’t care. School is important.” Her curiosity is getting the best of her and perhaps she is being a bit of a voyeur, but Kara is the one on a phone call while in someone else’s hospital room.

She is slightly irritated too. Kara had clearly been waiting for whatever reason for her to wake up, probably so she can scold her again, and tell her what a mistake it is to work her brother. Although, she supposes Kara didn’t really really do that when she stopped by her penthouse. In laymen’s terms, Kara told her to fuck off unless she dumped her brother and all of her current plans.

“Look, you’ll be going back to your school soon enough.” Even from this distance Lena can hear the loud squeals and winces in sympathy. “I take it your siblings heard that? Yes, you’ll be coming back to the city in the coming weeks. I promise, but that still doesn’t erase your punishment and the apology you owe your grandmother.” Kara picks up her pacing again. “I’ll consider the extenuating and stressful circumstances argument at a later time when we can hold a family court session until then it is grounded central. You are not to leave your grandmother’s house for whatever reason. Understand?” She nods her head. “Good, I’m glad all of you could hear that. I don’t really like repeating myself.” She mutters something in what Lena assumes is her mother tongue before hanging up. She ends the call.

Lena stares at her incredulously, listening as Kara mutters to herself, before pivoting back to face Lena. That is when she notices the MIT hoodie and the glasses on her head. Her hair is in fact longer and is she older? “What the hell is going on Kara? Where am I? Why are you even here? Last time I checked, I was on your list of villains to take down due to my affiliations with my brother.”

Kara halts mid-step, mouth opening and closing, her face clouded with horror as she steps back and then she flees. Lena blinks a few times, but Kara definitely used her super speed. She doesn’t understand what would cause that reaction.  
  


The other woman rarely backs down from a direct challenge. 

Her eyes roam over her surroundings, searching for anything to give her a clue when she spies a phone. It doesn’t look like anything she’s seen and reminds her more of a prototype than a piece of functional tech. 

The screen lights up and scans her face before unlocking. And that’s when she sees the date. “Impossible.” She can't have missed out on ten years of her life. The phone has to be lying. Except, she remembers Kara's reaction and something resembling dread settles in her stomach. 

Is this why there’s a blank spot in her mind?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt bad for Lena at the end of 5x13. Katie is really good at conveying those micro-emotions. Kara was right and she was wrong. Lena did need to stop blaming her for her own choices, but Kara should've never used the word villain. She knows Lena isn't one. I swear if they had just talked like normal people, 95% of their problems could've been resolved. Instead they just kept going in circles, never listening to the other.  
> So yeah the smut did come earlier than anticipated but whatever lol  
> Also you can catch up with me on tumblr under the same handle.


	4. to you i'd never be cold

Lena sets the phone aside, no longer interested in discovering what the hell has happened to her. Kara has to come back eventually. Right? Whether she and Kara are friends in the future or not, the woman would never desert someone in need of help. She has to hope that Kara hasn’t changed that significantly or their history hasn’t drastically altered something between them.

She decides she’ll wait for whatever explanation the other woman will stumble through as opposed to searching for herself with the use of _Google_. Her head is already pounding from discovering the year and she doesn’t want to worsen the pain with an information overload or to see with her own eyes the changes a decade can bring. She doesn’t want to know the aftermath of how her plans with her brother have unfolded and if she’s still alone. She wouldn’t be surprised if she is. Who would want to be with a Luthor?

She closes her eyes, which provides her some sweet relief from the pounding in her skull. The fluorescent lights hurt after all the time spent in the dark and some of the pain from her headache eases. She isn’t listening for it, but her ears are attuned to the whooshing sound. She hears Kara speed back into the room, nearly as quick as she left.

Peering one eye open, the other quickly joins when she sees that it is in fact not Kara in her hospital room. It is a girl. She can’t say how old as she has almost no experience with children outside of Ruby, and with that train of thought, her heart pangs with the knowledge Ruby is a woman now. She thinks the girl is younger than ten as she doesn’t look to have hit puberty yet.

The girl stares- no gapes at her, eyes wide in surprise, her mouth forming a perfect ‘o’. Lena takes the time to get a good look at the child. She is abnormally sun kissed given that it is almost the middle of October even if they are in California. Her hair is strawberry blonde and hangs down her back in loose waves, but it looks a little windblown.

It is her eyes that are startling. They are two different colors. Of course with her science background, she easily deduces the girl has heterchromia iridum. Still, she can’t say she has ever met anyone with the condition. One eye is a vibrant blue, while the other is a stormy sea green. There is a lot of unspoken emotion in them as her eyes stay fixated on the woman in the bed.

She is lanky too- all limbs as if she hasn’t quite grown into her body, but she holds herself up with strength, poise, and a little stubbornness. Her face reminds Lena of pictures she saw of a young, new on Earth Kara, except there are traces of someone else in her face too. She can't pinpoint why this girl seems familiar to her. Part of her feels as if she should know her.

Her head tilts as her eyes remain trained on Lena. It is disconcerting and Lena tries not to feel intimidated by the presence of this child. She is Lena Luthor for crying out loud and stared down her brother as she testified against him in court. “It’s really you,” her voice is sweet and melodious. “I can’t believe it.” Tears fill her eyes and she falls to her knees sobbing. "You came back to us." Her voice cracks.

Lena’s heart rate sky rockets, and before she can do anything, like call for help, Kara is back and taking control of the situation.

“Oh Oona,” her face crumbles as she pulls the crying girl into her arms, gently rocking her.

Lena doesn’t understand anything that’s happening, except for recognizing Oona as the name she heard Kara say into her phone. The only logical reason for the girl’s untimely arrival is if she and Kara are related. The thought had occurred to her and then she sees the resemblance between the gi-Oona and Kara. It fits with the passage of ten years and maybe in that time Kara has moved on with her life, rather quickly if she estimated this girl’s age correctly.

She doesn’t know how to assimilate this new knowledge into her head. Kara is someone’s mother. She can’t explain why the thought of Kara marrying some faceless person displeases her. It shouldn't bother her at all. In fact, she doesn't care, except deep down she does.

Oona pulls away from her mother’s hold, her eyes focused on Lena. “Why isn’t she saying something? Are her brains scrambled? Was she in some kind of experiment and they accidentally destroyed all cognitive function?”

 _What the hell? Who was this kid?_ She may not have a whole lot of experience with children, but she is aware most of them don’t talk like that.

Kara snorts. “No little one,” she takes a deep breath, and Lena watches her brace herself. “It’s more complicated than that.”

Oona turns to face Kara, raising a brow, and Lena freezes. She knows that expression. “What are you talking about mom?” She places her hands on her hips. “Is this why you’ve been here for the last week? Why did you lie? You could have told us.”

Lena has been an unwilling participant in a battle of wills between mother/daughter in the past, engaging with her mother when she has run out of options. However, this is something different than the stuff between her and Lillian. Lillian didn't tolerate insolence and refused to continue speaking to Lena if she couldn't show an ounce of respect. 

This young girl seems unbothered by the sharpness inflected in her voice as she fires question after question at Kara. Her questions add to Lena’s growing confusion. She wants answers and apparently Oona does too. Does she know this child? Why does she feel like she knows this girl? Why isn’t Kara saying anything?

Her eyes focus intently on Kara as her eyes travel upward and her lips move without sounds coming out. “Oona,” she attempts to grab the girl’s hand, but she isn’t having any of it. She takes a step back, inching closer to the bed. Lena hates her body’s natural inclination to want to comfort Kara. “Please, this isn’t the time or place. You disobeyed me. You were supposed to go home.” Weariness is written into the lines of Kara's face, and Lena has never seen the Kryptonian woman so tired. 

“Mommy, what is going on? Please don’t deflect, I just am so confused. I heard her heart on the phone and she said your name and then you said so yourself it was her, I didn’t tell the others.” Her eyes are full of promise and Lena believes her. She crosses her heart. "I promise. I just split from them when we got back to California."

She thinks she hears Kara mutter something along the lines of ‘Rao, give me strength.’

Kara kneels before her daughter, keeping her distance, but close enough that there is familial intimacy. “Sweetheart, I have been here for a week because Auntie Alex called me last week and told me they found her.” Oona’s mouth trembles and her eyes flick over in Lena’s direction. Several emotions flicker across her young face, and she wishes to know who she is in this girl’s life and what she is thinking about that has caused her to look like that.

“Mom?” Only her gaze isn’t on Kara, it is on Lena.

“Oona- no.” Kara tries feebly to stop her. It is too late though.

And the final puzzle piece she was missing slides into place. All of the features that aren’t Kara’s are hers. The high cheek bones, the stubborn jut of her chin, the green iris, and the overall familiarity this girl has with her even the mannerisms are things she does. She is Lena’s daughter with Kara? How? She couldn't believe it. She should've picked up on it after Oona lifted her brow in the same manner as Lena. It is overwhelming. She is a mother. She has a daughter and that daughter has siblings. How many of them are there? How did this happen?

She hates Kara. She knows she does. She feels it burning through her. Logic dictates circumstances between them have changed in ten years and she struggles to make sense of any of it because the last time she checked, she and Kara were on opposite sides. How did she forgive Kara? When did it happen? Part of her yearned to for so long to start a new bridge, but the longer she went without talking to her, the easier it was to ignore and push her anger to the forefront. She wanted to hold on to all of it because without it, she had nothing.

Kara was her best friend and she told other people who she had known for less time before she told Lena. In her mind that translated to Kara never trusted her because if she had, she would’ve told her long before she won a Pulitzer, before Lena killed her brother (even if he deserved it), and before Lena unknowingly gave her heart to the blonde. She has heard her weak explanations and she wants to believe her, but her stubborn pride refuses.

“Mom?” Lena pins Kara into place with her eyes. "Kara?" She needs some answers. She has to be dreaming, otherwise- no she can't even bear to contemplate what it would mean if she isn't.

“Mommy, are you okay?” Instantly Oona is at her side, and it is disorienting how fast she is. She hadn’t had much experience with super speed at least outside of Supergirl. Kara generally flew everywhere and always wore her supersuit, so it was odd sometimes fitting Kara into the Supergirl persona. 

Lena lifts her eyes to meet Kara’s and all she can feel is crippling fear and the same fear is reflected back at her. Kara is terrified of Lena’s reaction. There is something protective in her gaze and her stance, and she realizes Kara thinks Lena might hurt their daughter, not physically but with her words. She turns her head away because she doesn't want to hurt this sweet, innocent kid who is worried about her and travelled so far to check up on her. 

“Oona,” Kara lowers her voice and the effect is soothing. “Your mom most likely hit her head or something,” she bites her lip. Lena did always enjoy when Kara did that. She ignores the rush of arousal because that is the last thing she needs. She shoves it into one of her many Kara boxes. She has to focus on what is important. “I think she might have amnesia. I was out talking with her doctor, and they’re going to do some tests and come and talk to her.” At least, she wasn’t running away like Lena assumed.

The little girl’s face is horrified as her gaze flickers between Lena and Kara. “I’m staying,” she states firmly, leaving no room for an argument.

 _Is this what’s it’s like to see yourself reflected in someone else?_ It is odd and comforting listening to this child act like a strangely weird combo of herself and Kara. There’s the stubbornness they both have and is that an inheritable trait? Or had she learned it?

“Fine,” Kara’s shoulders sag as if she doesn’t have it in her to fight with the tiny human. Lena has never seen her so defeated and she bites her tongue to stop herself from asking what happened to her. She is doing her best to try and remain indifferent to the blonde. "Probably for the best, you'll get your siblings worked up before I can tell them."

She hasn't clarified how many of them there are yet, but there are at least two others. There are more children she is going to have to meet. She lowers her eyes to her lap, unable to look at Oona without thinking about the other children. Did they miss her too? How has her absence affected them? Guilt gnaws at her insides. How would she explain any of this to them? She didn't remember them and she didn't want to hurt them. She wants to protect them from herself. Did that make her a mother? The idea of them makes her warm inside and it should be frightening, but isn't this what she has always wanted? No, she is scared. These children aren't expecting her. They want their mom and she is decidedly not her. Will they even like her? Or see the ghost of the woman she should be but isn't? Before she can get too caught up in her thoughts, Kara provides the perfect distraction. 

The blonde heads over to the door and pokes her head out. She has a mumbled conversation and a doctor enters. “Hello Mrs. Luthor,” she greets politely. Lena blinks at her, straining to keep her face blank. She is reeling from all of the information that has been freely flowing since Kara’s arrival. “I’m Dr. Meyers.”

“Hello,” she croaks, her throat hoarse. She feels the rush of heat to her face. Oona hands her a glass of water with a shy smile before stepping back. “Thank you,” she murmurs. She isn’t impolite and she won’t start now, especially with her own kid.

“Mrs. Luth-“

“Lena,” she cuts in, Mrs. holds too many implications for her at the moment, and she isn’t ready to deal with any of them.

Dr. Meyers smiles. “Okay Lena then, can you tell me what year it is?”

She knows what she should say. She has seen the date on her phone after all, but she wants to know what is wrong with her and that won’t happen if she lies to her doctor. “It’s 2020.”

Oona gasps, stumbling back into her mother. She feels horrible after seeing the girl’s reaction. She may not remember this girl who is supposedly her daughter, but she doesn’t want to be the cause of her pain either. She doesn’t want to be Lillian and relish in other people’s misery, particularly her daughter’s. She didn’t miss Kara’s sharp inhale either. Ten years is a long time and it frightens her that there is a huge blank space where her memories should be.

“It isn’t, I’m afraid. It is October 15th, 2030.” She nods, licking her lips nervously. “Do you remember what happened to you?” She shakes her head. “You’ve been missing for six months.”

The doctor allows her to sit with that for a few minutes. She can’t decide which is worse, the six months she was gone or the ten years worth of memories that aren’t there. She wonders if there is any correlation between the two. “Six months?”

“Yes, you were in a plane crash and presumed dead before turning up here.”

It explains Oona’s tearful reaction upon seeing her. it appeared as if Christmas had come early and every wish she had ever made came true. If she was in a plane crash, where has she been all of this time? “I don’t remember that.” She mumbles tiredly. She really is exhausted. Everything aches and she wants to rest.

“I’m going to ask you a series of questions to gauge what you do remember. Is that okay?” She shrugs, nails digging into her palms. “Okay, where do you work?”

“At LuthorCorp.”

The doctor hums and scribbles down her answer. She has the feeling from the girl’s pursed lips and tight hold on Kara’s arms that her answer isn’t entirely correct.

“Where do you live?”

“National City? I mean assume I no longer reside in my old penthouse, so I can’t say beyond the city where I live.” Does she even have home after being gone for six months?

“What is the last thing you remember?”

She hesitates, fingers twisting in the blanket. Her eyes briefly dart to where Kara stands, arms wrapped around their daughter. “Um…” she licks her lips. “I had a disagreement with a former friend and she told me I was responsible for my own bad choices.”

The doctor confers with her notes. “I would like to run another CT. We can wait until tomorrow if that will make you feel more comfortable.”

“What is wrong with me?”

“It appears that you have a severe case of retrograde amnesia. Given that you retain memories of the first twenty-seven years of your life, it is possible you might recover the last ten or you might not ever regain them. As much as we continue to study the brain and memory loss, we still don’t have all the answers. We will have to run more tests, and I’m going to refer you to a specialist who has had success with cases like yours

She isn’t 27 anymore. There is a whole decade that has disappeared from her mind. She is closer to 40 than 30 and it is that fact that sends her spiraling into a panic attack. Her breaths staccato as the world blurs around her. She can’t focus on anything. She tries to listen to the doctor through the rushing of blood in her ears, _thump, thump, thump_ echoes over and over. She feels the heat rising and sweat dripping down her face as her chest rises and falls faster and faster. Her hands tremble, and she attempts to take a deep breath to calm herself, but it catches in her throat. Instead of deep and even breaths, they are sharp and shallow, harsh sound rasps in her ears.

Her heart pounds harder, erratically, and her legs and arms refuse to obey commands sent from her brain. Her vision narrows and it is if the world around her has become a giant, spinning kaleidoscope.

The doctor’s steady voice is there, but it is as if she is underwater. The words are muddled and she can’t concentrate on what is being said. She sees people with masks hovering over her, talking about her as if she isn’t there. They poke and prod her, ignoring her as she screams and pleads for them to stop and let her die. She is in the dark place again.

“Stop! You’re going to hurt her. She doesn’t like needles or strangers around her. Get away from my mommy!” Dimly, she recognizes the voice as Oona’s and swears she hears her screaming before she loses all consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So moved on from my Taylor kick to Fleetwood Mac. I'll add pictures next chapter of what I like to think their kids look like.  
> Also, I'm not a doctor or anything, so we're just going to go with it.


	5. long night, with your hands up in my hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a long one. Thank you to everyone who has read my story, left comments or kudos. I appreciate it more than words can express.

Lena snuggles closer to the source of warmth, sighing contently as she feels heat spread through her body. She has always run a little cold. It was one of the benefits to being friends with Kara. She ran warmer than most and cuddling with Kara kept her toasty. That closeness is one of the numerous things she misses besides the ease they had around one another.  


She pauses. She shouldn’t be warm at all.

Her brow furrows as she can’t figure out why she is so damn hot, or why she is pinned in place. Then she feels it, the small body that is wrapped around hers. She hears rustling a few feet away and the steady beeping of her heart monitor.

Right… she’s in the hospital after being dumped in a hospital six months after her plane crashed, just another set of unanswered questions in her life. She can’t forget the more pertinent details either like the fact that it has been over ten years and she is married to her former best friend, or the amnesia she is suffering from that has erased her life. What’s worse is she’s a mother. She has children, tiny people that are half her DNA. Her life doesn’t resemble the one she left behind and Lena has prided herself on having an orderly life. She hates mess, probably related to the mess that is her family. 

She can hardly believe the world she has woken up to. It is disorienting and she doesn’t know what to focus on first.

Lena oscillates between confusion, anger, and curiosity. The latter is fueling her the most as her mind wanders. After their fall out and the subsequent madness involved in adjusting to a new world, Lena made it clear who she was affiliated with and who she didn’t want to consort with any longer. As soon as Kara disappeared after calling her a villain, Lena collapsed in a heap, sobbing uncontrollably over what she lost. She belatedly realized that for all she gained, she lost a few things along the way like herself.

She may have regained the affection of her brother, but when Lex wasn’t there, serving his many sentences, when he had betrayed her in the worst ways imaginable and committed atrocities in the name of saving the planet, it was Kara who wove her way into Lena’s life, saving her from the fate of being a Luthor. Kara, who told her at every turn that bearing the same last name as her mother and brother didn’t make her like them and she could make different choices. Sometimes she wishes she could go back to the early days when she ignored those things about Kara that pinged her senses as odd, something worth investigating, before her brother opened her eyes, destroying everything she built in is absence.

She isn’t oblivious nor stupid, and there were inconsistent oddities she had observed about Kara for example her perpetual tardiness. Kara was rarely on time for anything. She had an excuse at every turn for why she was delayed, some bordering on ridiculous, and Lena let it slide. Then there was usually some reason why she had to excuse herself early or cancel their plans altogether. Her friends helped with some of her cover stories to keep Lena from figuring it out. She recognized the Supergirl emergencies and Kara using her abilities to monitor the city. It explained all of the family emergencies she seemingly had.

After ‘I flew here on a bus’, she should’ve ruminated on some of the other strange things that left her mouth. She didn’t. She doesn’t have a reason why.

Her body language gave her away too when Lena took the time to contemplate her history with Kara. Everything became clear. Lena should’ve seen it from the beginning. She is a Luthor and was raised to detect a lie. 

Kara is a terrible liar. It is an indisputable fact. For someone whose life was wrapped in deception, she was rarely convincing when selling a lie. There is something endearing about listening to her stumble through a lie. Lena wanted to believe her, and that was her first mistake. Granted her betrayal wasn’t on the same level as Eve’s or her brother’s, but it hurt more than theirs combined. She had seen how tense Kara became whenever her superhero persona was mentioned and when Lena revealed negative feelings in regards to Supergirl.

She supposes her vehement defense of Supergirl makes sense. She couldn’t exactly trash herself and it explains why the hero often crossed personal boundaries with Lena. She and Kara didn’t have very many to start. Knowing it was Kara all along added a whole new dimension to those interactions.

And apparently they are back to having none again except with an evolved form of intimacy she never dreamed could exist. They aren’t just best friends in the present, they are wives and parents and the thought terrifies her. She doesn’t have much experience with dating and certainly not a woman. She experimented some in college before Jack, but she didn’t care for any of those women, not how she knows she still does for Kara, whether she wants to or not. 

That’s the thing with little boxes. The things she tucks inside in hopes of burying them, they always escape and come back to her. She has tried to rid herself of her feelings and failed miserably because Kara had infected her heart and her mind. She had freely given pieces of her heart away until there was nothing left and she hadn’t realized it until she wanted it back.

Except a gift like that isn’t one that you can take back at a whim. For three years, she fell a little more in love with her best friend every day until the day she realized Kara was another person in a long list of people who hurt her. 

Now here she is in a life she didn’t dare to dream could be hers in the future and it feels like she cheated like she skipped to the end of the movie. This isn’t really her life. She stole it from a different version of herself and doesn’t know how to fix any of it. She is a scientist, but a medical doctor she is not.

She shouldn’t be here. She can’t stop fixating on the faded blue of Kara’s eyes as she swallowed her disappointing upon understanding Lena wasn’t the Lena she knew.

She feels cold and her grip tightens. Her ears catch the sound of a tiny whine, and she loosens her hold when it hits her who is sleeping on top of her.

When she opens her eyes, it takes a moment for her to adjust to the low lighting of the hospital. The lights are off and the city lights can be seen in the distance. Her vision is filled with long strawberry blonde hair, splayed across her chest belonging to Oona… her daughter. In her sleep, her face is relaxed, none of the distress she saw earlier. She looks incredibly young.

Her eyes trace over the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose like Kara. They are centralized in that one area with a few dotted under her eyes. She has thin eyebrows matching the color of her hair, maybe a shade darker. Her dark eyelashes rest on her cheeks and Lena has never seen someone so beautiful in her life. She wants to run her fingers through the soft waves, but resists the urge so as not to wake her up.

“I can move her if you’re uncomfortable.” Lena startles at Kara’s voice. She squints and makes out her figure strewn across the lumpy couch.

She thought she was prepared for her, but seeing her disheveled appearance does something to her. It has been several long, agonizing months since she has been a position to be near this laid back version of the blonde. She and Kara have only had public meetings where everything is formal and distant. There were no more game nights, lunch nights, or showing up to hang out. 

“No… uh… she’s fine. I mean if you know um don’t think she’ll be comfortable.” Lena doesn’t know how to navigate this minefield she has found herself stranded in. Talking to Kara last week was easy, she just ignored her. She didn’t have to acknowledge her presence at all. She hasn’t used her words particularly well since the reveal and maybe that is the problem.   


Forgiveness was viewed as a weakness. Luthors were taught to avoid all signs of weakness. If she talked to Kara, airing out all of her grievances, she would eventually come to forgive her for keeping her secret. 

She watches as Kara stretches and pushes up, strolling across the room. She seats herself in the vacant chair at Lena’s bedside.

When she first woke up, she noticed the changes, but her mind hadn’t fully processed them at the time. Her hair is longer than it was ten years ago, though still as blonde, maybe even blonder. It is a bit mussed from sleeping, but she is adorable as she blinks sleepily.

It is the lack of glasses that throws her off. “Where are your glasses?”

Kara snorts. “You know I don’t wear them all the time. I mean well I did with you, but whenever I’m just me and not around people who don’t know I don’t wear them.”

“Right…” she mumbles. If what she had read in Lex’s journals about Kryptonians is accurate, they’ve got impeccable eyesight and the glasses are for show. “Are you still Supergirl?”

A dark look crosses over the blonde’s face and she pauses before answering. “Not so much these days. I’m not that young anymore and there are new heroes out there willing to take their place. I go when I’m absolutely needed, but mostly I’m retired.”

Lena doesn’t know what to do with that. She hadn’t thought much about the toll being a hero takes on a person. She sort of thought Kara relished in her God like status, but that could have been the anger talking. She never imagined a scenario where Kara or her cousin wouldn’t continue fighting bad guys forever. “Oh.”

“I hadn’t meant to originally become Supergirl if you can believe it.”

“Really?” From where she’s laying and what she observed, she thought it was what Kara chose to become. Her first big save was broadcasted across the country and she can’t imagine how saving a plane wasn’t purposeful. She hasn’t had a proper sit down to discuss all of the intricacies of her life before they met. Lena hadn’t wanted to know all of that, instead she manipulated Kara into doing things for her, exploiting her abilities and willingness to help Lena.

She bobs her head. “Alex, she was on a plane that had been sabotaged and I- well I wasn’t going to let her die. She was pissed as hell at me for risking my identity. I hadn’t flown in years or really used any of my abilities, so I was rusty. And then the media got ahold of the story, and I saw this as my chance to finally help people like my cousin. I don’t know that I thought I had the same hero potential, but I wanted to make a name for myself.”

Lena swallows back her words. That first meeting floats to the surface of an eager Kara empathizing with Lena wanting to do some good in the world outside of the evil of her family. “How did it happen?” She realizes how vague her question is. “I mean us- the rest- it can wait for another time. It’s just the last time we spoke-”

“I called you a villain.” The irony of the situation isn’t lost on either of them. Her blue gaze drifts to where Oona snores softly against Lena’s chest. “It’s Oona’s favorite story. The others have their own favorite bedtime stories, but Oona loves romance and she thinks we are clueless.”

“The others?”

Kara’s eyes widen dramatically as she pulls out her phone, opening up Instagram. “Huh, kind of forgot with everything that- you know you’ve got the memory loss and have only met Oona here. Oona has a twin sister, Eilís, they just turned nine last week.” Lena bites her lip, body stiffening with the realization she had missed their birthday. She doubts she has missed a single one since they were born. It also means she and Kara got together not too long after the night on the balcony if they were having kids a little over a year and a half later.

Oona wiggles uncomfortably, mumbling incoherently. “After them is Orla. She is everybody’s little princess until she’s not. She’s got a mischievous streak and sets up elaborate pranks. She and Eilís are our little troublemakers. She is seven. And then there is Liam. He turned six over the summer. He was about to finish kindergarten when you left.”

They are all young, not that she expected differently. A ten year gap in her memory meant none of her children could be older than nine. “A-am I-I a good,” she blinks back tears. It has been her greatest fear growing up. She didn’t want to turn out like Lillian, or raise her children to become psychopaths with no regard for human life.

Kara seems to understand immediately where she is going. “You are the best.” She raises a hand to tuck back Lena’s hair, stopping herself at the last minute, stretching to hide the awkwardness of the moment. “They are all happy and well-adjusted and that is in part because of you.” She slides through photos of birthdays, sports practices, science fairs, dance recitals, vacations, etc.

She can’t fathom how she hasn’t ruined these children with the Luthor touch. They are beautiful and perfect. “The twins kind of remind me of my birth mother.” Her face is wistful as she stares at their faces. She recalls her mother having a similar hair color.

“You’ve told me that. We didn’t want there to be too much of an age gap and then with Liam you had baby fever not long after having Orla.”

“So you carried the twins?”

“Yes, we spent some time on Argo during my pregnancy, arriving back on Earth right before the birth and we closed on our house around that time.”

“Our house?” She supposes a house sounds lovely, much cozier than her sterile penthouse lacking any personality. There is a hint of a smile forming at the corner of her lips as her mind latches onto the idea of a house, not a house by Luthor standards. She knows herself to know she wouldn’t want to live in some stuffy mausoleum with overpriced trinkets and furniture.

Kara beams at her and it is as if the sun has already risen. She forgot how beautiful she is and how she is sunshine personified. “Yeah, we live in a townhouse. It’s got six bedrooms. We completely renovated it, but we did a little at a time. We did a lot of the work ourselves because we wanted it to be ours. You also wanted to install the security system yourself. It is impossible to get inside if you aren’t already coded in.”

“That does sound like me,” she says. Lena is crazy about her security. She has had enough attempts on her life that she would rather not risk it. Marrying Kara and having children would only serve to make her want to create the best system imaginable to protect her family. “And we are happy?”

Happiness is a foreign concept to her. At different stages of her life Lena Luthor might say she was happy, all the while knowing it was a lie or a half truth. She hasn’t known happiness since the day she watched her birth mother drown and she was unable to help. Sometimes it felt as if she were drowning, struggling to take a breath, and unable to come up for air.

“Incredibly,” Kara’s reply is instant and Lena believes her. She is open and genuine, her deep blue eyes reflect the purest of loves, and it is unlike any Kara she has known. “It has been a hard six months, and I’m starting to come around to agreeing with you about the whole flying thing.” Lena snorts indelicately. “I think you might be cursed because you and flying machines don’t seem to work out that well.”

“I might have to agree with you.”

There is the start of their relationship with Supergirl’s first save of Lena Luthor, the whole Kara refusing to let her die instead and maybe she has thought about the situation all wrong, and she can’t forget their adventure on a plane in 2019. “So are you going to tell me the story of how we got together?”

“It’s a long fucking story.”

“Swear jar,” a tiny voice mumbles. Lena feels the puffs of breaths against her chest.

“Shi-oot.”

“Halfsies still counts.”

“Damnit.”

Lena raises a brow, her nose scrunching in confusion. What the hell are they talking about?

Kara grumbles under her breath. “We instituted a swear jar when they started talking after you dropped the F bomb and it became the twins’ first words.” Lena’s eyes widen in horror. “Worse, they said it at Alex’s wedding in front of everyone. Alex thinks it’s funny, but I can assure you my mother didn’t agree. We were mortified by the whole thing. So we did the whole swear jar thing, except now the little con artists have started developing super hearing. It is just Eilís and Miss I hear everything so far, but the other two won’t be too far behind.”

“Made over 300 off mom, Auntie Alex, Aunt Sam, and Ruby at the Fourth of July.”

“It was an accident.” Kara gesticulates, her arms moving in a wide motion, frighteningly fast. “It involves fireworks and burned hotdogs and that’s all I’ll say on the matter. Just know they’ll swindle money off of you if you're not careful. We make them donate it to a charity or buy toys and books for the kids at the hospital. They really enjoy watching us lose our cool.”

Oona snickers. “Easy money and the children thank you for your exemplary language skills. It’s even more awesome if mommy starts swearing in Kryptonian. She starts mixing English and Kryptonian together. You, mom are the worst culprit, especially if you had a board meeting or some jerk from some company talks down to you. You come home all angry, saying all kinds of bad words.”

“Okay,” Kara claps her hands together. “Why don’t we get on with the story instead of rehashing old stuff?”

Oona sits up immediately, her hair flying everywhere. Lena hides her smile. “What story?”

“Your favorite,” and Oona bounces excitedly. “Do you want to do the honors?”

“Do I ever,” she smiles. “I guess this will all be new for you, but who doesn’t like hearing a tale for the ages for the first time?” The question is obviously rhetorical. “Okay so mommy and mommy, you guys are like the _Ultimate_ team and took down Uncle Lex after having already defeated Leviathan. You got coffee, but didn’t know where to go from there because like you guys hadn’t talked to each other in forever. It was super awkward and you didn’t make any plans just smiled and vaguely said you would catch up.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at them. Lena loves this kid. “So then _the_ Cat Grant, like the most legendary woman in the United States and Queen of all media comes into town and decides to take mommy out. She had heard some things while in D.C.”

* * *

_“Ms. Gran- Cat,” she corrects upon catching the familiar raising of the eyebrow. Rao, she didn’t miss those days. “Where are we going? Why are we going out for a drink?”_

_“Look Kiara,” Kara rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “I’ve heard things come down the pipeline.”_

_“What things?” Her forehead crinkles._

_“We will talk when we get there.” Cat’s car pulls up to a nightclub, and Kara stares at her dubiously._

“She took you to dinner?”

Kara ducks her head as she starts to blush. They couldn’t exactly tell their children the non G rated version of the story. She mouths _nightclub_ for Lena and watches as comprehension dawns in her eyes.

“As I was saying, Queen Grant took Supergirl out to dinner to talk. She had heard about her and the princess. She wanted to help Supergirl because she thought she was sad.”

_Kara glances around the place, surprise blossoming on her face as she realizes they are at a lesbian nightclub. “C-cat what are we-why are- how- I’m confused.” She didn’t believe for one second it was Cat’s normal hangouts, and she always has a reason for her madness. Kara wasn’t certain she wanted the explanation behind this one._

_Cat leads her former assistant over to a booth. “What do you think of our destigaytion?”_

_Kara ignores the pun._

_“Why here exactly?”_

_“Oh Kara,” there’s that pitiful tone Kara remembers quite well from when she worked under Cat, well not under her. “It has come to my attention that you and a certain ‘friend’ have had a falling out.”_

_Her mouth drops open. Seriously, Cat wants to discuss her friendship or lack thereof with Lena. How does the woman get her information anyway? Doesn’t she have better things to focus on? She starts messing with her glasses, eyes traveling over the room when they land on Lena- wait Lena? “Fuck,” she hisses, turning her head away._

_The last thing she needed was Lena to come over. What would she say to her?_

_“Kara Danvers, maybe there really is more to you than meets the eye. Just five years ago you were my mousy little assistant at my beck and call. You didn’t stand up for yourself and allowed yourself to fade into the background. Then slowly but surely like an onion, the layers were pulled back and there was more than meets the eyes. I’ve watched your relationship with Lena unfold, and you’ve written to me about her a few times or a hundred in your emails.” There’s that eyebrow again. “Then it stopped. I got curious. Nothing really changes in the press room, so I used my free time to dig around.”_

_Kara sinks into her seat, avoiding Cat’s gaze, but refusing to look elsewhere either. She prays Lena doesn’t notice her. They haven’t talked at all since their coffee outing._

_They are friends? They hadn’t clarified what they were doing or when they would next see each other. It was up in the air and all of the uncertainty was doing a number on her insides._

_Every time she starts to text Lena, she types a few lines before immediately erasing them. She spends a lot of her time staring at her conversation with Lena from months and months ago before things got complicated. Alex just shakes her head, mumbling something about useless and oblivious, leaving her sister to stew._

_“Oh?”_

_“Yes, not long after this whole Crisis nonsense, which we will discuss later, you and Miss Luthor who were known to spend time together whether it is mild mannered Kara or her ‘friend’ ceased all public appearances.” She hums thoughtfully, hazel eyes glinting mischievously as if she knows exactly what Kara is thinking._

_So this is the downside to catching the attentions of your former boss. She had welcomed Cat’s mentoring and secret approval of her, but she hadn’t thought the woman paid all that much attention to her after she departed for the east coast. “Uh yeah you know- we uh just um are incredibly busy and there’s nothing wrong or anything. Why would you think that? We are fine, great even, better than great, and things have been going smoothly. There was just a hiccup but it is all good and yeah.”_

_“I see your ability to lie hasn’t improved in three years.”_

_She deflates. “Fine,” she glares at her. “Things are weird. We had a falling out and there were some rough months. We teamed up together to take her brother down, but without a common goal to fight towards, i don’t know how to talk to her anymore.”_

_“Did you ever consider telling you’re in love?”_

_“I’m sorry. With who?”_

_“Lena.” She states as if it is public knowledge._

_Kara blinks owlishly. “Wh-what? Don’t be absurd, I’m not in love with her.” She sips at her drink to stop herself from talking. Cat is like a dog with a bone and she is on the hunt tonight. “We aren’t like that at all. Where did you get su-such a r-ridiculous idea?” If she wants to convince Cat she has no romantic feelings for Lena, the stuttering isn’t helping her case. She doesn’t know what is wrong with her. It isn’t as if her former boss intimidates her any longer._

_“Oh honey,” she pats Kara’s hand. “You are floating down the river denial.”_

_“I am not.”_

_“If I type in Lena’s name in my email search box, it pops up hundreds of times from emails sent by you. You wrote about how amazing she is and she’s such a great boss, not that I wasn’t. You wrote about brunches and lunches. Hell the woman filled your office with flowers and it never occurred to you that she was hitting on you?”_

_Kara reels back, her chair falling back. She could right herself, but she needs this moment out of Cat’s direct line of sight. Her brows draw together, the familiar wrinkle appearing. She is wrong. Cat can’t be right about Lena and her acts of kindness. She is just plain old Kara Danvers. Lena would never go for her when she could have anyone, literally anyone. Friends filled other friend’s offices with flowers. It was a thing. She rights herself, flushing when others look her way. “You’re wrong.”_

_“Am I?” That’s the problem. Cat is rarely wrong about many things even if she can be misguided. She is highly observant. “The woman bought a company despite having no experience in the world of media aside from being featured in it.”_

_“She was being a good friend.” She defends weakly._

_“She exclusively allowed you to interview her for your articles. Explain that to me.”_

_Kara falters for second. “She doesn’t like the press and knew I wouldn’t crucify her.”_

_“Yet she actively befriended a member of the press. Have you seen the way she looks at you?”_

_“No?” Yes. Friends can look at each other like that. It doesn’t mean romance is on the horizon. Lena valued Kara’s friendship and that’s why she looked at her like that. They were best friends._

_Cat has to give it to her former assistant. She thought the obliviousness was an act in the beginning, quickly discovering it is all Kara. She really has no idea. “She is gay for you. She personally invited you to her gala. Who does that for someone they barely know?”_

_Kara is willing to concede to that particular point. She was thoroughly shocked when Lena showed up at CatCo with a personal invite to a gala. They hadn’t known each other very long then, but Lena felt emboldened to make a friendly request. At the time she assumed Lena was lonely and wanted a familiar face around when the vultures started hovering. However, Lena didn’t have to deliver it herself. She sought out Kara, despite having only a few interactions mostly professional at the time._

_“And you, you can’t help but talk about her. You’ve mentioned how sad you were when your plans kept getting derailed and I will lose it if you tell me how pretty and smart she is one more time. Your emails the last few months have been sad and weepy. Your use of flowery language has disappeared and you’re very matter of fact. I noticed it coincided with the absence of photos capturing your public outings with Lena.”_

_“I haven’t sent that.”_

_“It is implied Kira.”_

_She has sent out some flattering emails about Lena. It doesn’t mean she has feelings like that for her. Does it? She gets frustrated when people attempt to crucify Lena in the press, especially after her brother has been arrested in this world. The public is wondering about any possible involvement Lena has had in Lex’s plans and she is being heavily scrutinized and persecuted. It isn’t to the extent in their previous universe as he hasn’t committed mass murder or attempted to kill her cousin, but it is there. She wants to counteract all the bad press, however she doesn’t want to push boundaries._

_“Here comes dark, beautiful, and all yours this way now.”_

_Kara scowls at the older woman, irritated by her enjoyment of the situation. Lena isn’t hers._ _They are friends or whatever they're calling themselves these days. Lena would never think of her like that._

_“Kara?” Lena smiles as she approaches._

_“Hi Lena,” she grins awkwardly as they do some weird hug that comes off more awkward as they each lean the same way, readjusting at the last second. Cat smirks at her. It is all her fault she is in this position anyway. She accepted the invitation without questioning it and if her skills as a reporter are worth anything, she is 99% positive Cat knew Lena would be here. “Um what are you doing here?” She hopes Lena can’t detect the nerves simmering under the surface._

_“Sam is in town and we decided to go out for some drinks. She is dancing now with Jess, and I saw you and wanted to say hi.”_

_“Well hi,” she waves. She wants to crawl in a hole and die. How is this her life? Why are things awkward between them? Coffee had gone over smoother than she expected, and she naively believed it would be the same the next time they met up. Except she has Cat filling her head with too many impossibilities, and she doesn't know what to do. She can't wreck things again with Lena._

_Lena’s smile falls. “Am I interrupting?” Those beautiful blue-green orbs drift to Cat, and Kara sees her face crease with worry and is that jealousy? She dismisses the notion immediately. It is a result of the ridiculous conversation she is holding with Cat that the idea popped into her head at all. “I can talk to you another time?” And damn Lex Luthor again for fucking up her relationship with Lena. This is the same woman who a year ago had no issues about sitting practically in her lap when they watched movies and here they are in the present barely able to hold a conversation with each other._

_“No, Cat was just visiting and wanted to catch up for a drink.” She nods enthusiastically, daring the woman to contradict her or mention what they were discussing. She grabs her drink, sipping aggressively to prolong having to talk to Lena again. She doesn’t know how to do this. For some reason, the only thing coming to her mind is cheesy pick-up lines. She can’t say any of those to Lena or can she? “Hey um Lena,” she giggles nervously, setting her drink aside. “Do you think I could try some pick-up lines on you as you know like practice?”_

_Her brows knit together as she bobs her head. “Sure?”_

_“Great, so I know some great science ones. If there was no gravity on this planet I would still fall for you.” And damnit, she is in love. “Or there’s my favorite element on the periodic table is Uranium because I am in love with u.”_

_Cat wants to bash her head in at this pathetic display. She is aware of Kara’s lack of game, so why is it the youngest Luthor is staring at her with heart eyes? She can’t be serious._

_“They’re cheesy but cute like you.”_

_“Oh god,” Cat says under her breath. “Idiots.” Kara shoots her a glare before facing Lena again with a radiant smile adorning her face._

_“You think I’m cute?”_

_Lena scratches the back of her neck. “Yeah, you’re gorgeous Kara.”_

_“Oh,” her cheeks darken and is it hot in here? “So are you. You’re stunning. Do you like Star Wars? Because Yoda one for me.”_

_Cat face palms after that as Lena giggles, moving closer to Kara. She can’t believe what she’s witnessing. She understands perfectly why they’re single. They are idiots. Apparently Lena Luthor loses her cool around Kara Danvers, but somehow had no issues buying a company or sending out bundles of flowers._

* * *

“You said that?”

“Oh shut up, you laughed.”

“It’s a little funny.” Lena pouts as Oona cackles.

“Ms. Grant says neither of you know how to get a woman and that you’re lucky you figured out your mess. From hearing this story my whole life, she might be on to something. I mean an office full of flowers like everywhere? When Tommy Wheeler gave me a flower in second grade, you told me he liked me.”

“I should know!” Kara jokes. “I got flowers from a charming woman once and it took me years to figure out it wasn’t a simple ‘thank you’ gesture.”

Lena thought she was being obvious. It was why she settled for friendship when Kara called them friends. Did Kara seriously not know? She didn’t buy a company for just anyone, nor did she arrange regular ‘dates’ with them either. She thought it was Kara’s way of letting her down easy, but all this time Kara hadn’t realized she was trying to woo her.

“You’re so corny. It was obvious she liked you. She bought CatCo for you.”

“Friends do nice things.”

“It was hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“She had the money.”

“Yeah, which she could’ve used to buy a house or buy you a restaurant. Instead mom saved your workplace for you and was excited to work with you everyday. That doesn’t say love to you and not the ukiem kind but :zhao.”

Lena had zero experience with Kryptonese, not that she had thought she would ever need it. She didn’t know what Oona said exactly, but she could use context clues to deduce her meaning.

“I know now that those grand gestures were her backwards way of showing interest in me.”

“Hey!” There was nothing backwards about her attempts at courting Kara.

“You could’ve started with ‘I like you, will you go on a date with me?’ You went all Mr. Arnstein showing off and showering me in compliments.”

“Mr. Arnstein?”

She rolls her eyes at the identical gasps issued from Kara and Oona. “Mom, you haven’t seen _Funny Girl?_ It is a classic. There’s romance and tragic heartbreak and of course Barbra Streisand.”

“I was running a company,” she crosses her arms defensively. “There isn’t a lot of time to spend watching movies. We don’t all have mothers who allow us to have fun.”

“Aw, did I touch a nerve?” The girl mocks her with a scrunch of her nose and Lena can’t deny this child is hers. “There’s no need to be like that.”

“Oona, respect your mother even if she can be rather boring and spend all of her time buried in paperwork or in the lab unless someone drags her away and thinks chess is the most exciting board game.” Kara and Oona bump knuckles as they laugh at Lena’s expense. She finds the scene charming and endearing.

She does glare at Kara for the gentle dig. She isn’t as bad as the woman is making her out to be. She has spent a few late nights in her office. Who hasn’t? If left it all to Lex, the company would’ve gone under. Her brother wasn’t known for his managerial skills. Kara ignores the heat of the glare, brushing it off as nothing.

“Okay, okay where was I? Oh right, so Queen Cat wants to bash her head into the table because the Princess and Supergirl are clueless. She said some other words in her version that I’m not allowed to say. Anyway, the Princess feels uncomfortable over how awkward the situation is and decides to excuse herself. She glances longingly one last time at Supergirl before going back to her friends who tease her about Supergirl. They can’t believe she has pined over the same woman for four years without making a bold move.”

* * *

_“Lena, I swear to God I will kill you if you don’t admit to her that you’re in love with her. How hard can it be?” Sam has heard Lena bitch and moan, wax poetic, and everything in-between about Kara for two years. Her patience is wearing thin. “You resolved your differences, right?” She nudges her shoulder._

_“I guess.” Lena shrugs, staring forlornly at her drink. “And I’m not in love with her.”_

_“Are we talking about the Lena and Kara saga again?” Jess slides into the booth with a round of shots. “I sensed there was something afoot when she told me to add Kara to her visitor’s list. She gave Kara unlimited access to her office, despite everyone who knows you, is aware of how much you enjoy your privacy. You had only known her for a few weeks and were constantly going out of your way to bend over backwards for her.”_

_“I wasn’t,” she protests._

_Sam and Jess fix her with matching looks, telling her they see straight through her. “You cried on the phone to me all last summer when you found out about her. You said she broke your heart. And from what Alex tells me of your behavior, you’ve behaved like you broke-up with each other.”_

_“It was the anger. You’re dramatizing events.”_

_“Lena, you went to her office and gave her a book to comfort her after her adoptive father died. You weren’t even on speaking terms.” Jess refuses to give Lena any leeway on this one. She has watched her former boss pine after Kara and she won’t allow her to continue to do so. She had a front row seat to the early stages of the Lena and Kara saga, saw the questionable looks, the subtle flirting, and read the intimate body language._

_“Why are you convinced I have feelings for her?”_

_She receives two pointed looks. “Honey, you can lie to her, but you can’t lie to us or yourself. Have you ever listened to the words you tell each other? You use the word friend an awful lot as if you’re trying to draw some imaginary boundary to keep you from crossing it. What is wrong with eliminating the line?”_

_Lena buries her head in her arms, inhaling sharply through her nose, groaning with the realization her friends are right. She and Kara never spoke about or acknowledged the something more between them, pretending as if it wasn’t there and casually inserting the word friends into many of their exchanges to avoid the awkwardness of addressing the tension that flares when they get too close._

_“What do I do?” She groans in response. Aside from her relationship with James, which ended in absolute disaster and should’ve never happened, she hasn’t had a real relationship in years. Her last anything involving females was during her undergrad and back then she hadn’t given too much thought to her attraction to women. With Kara, she tried to ignore it in favor of maintaining the status quo. Having Kara in her life as a friend was better than not having her at all, which she has personal experience with after cutting her out. Her life was wrapped up in the blonde and she hadn’t seen all the strings until they were no longer there. “We don’t even have a foundation to stand on after I smashed our friendship into tiny fragments.”_

_“So you build a new one. It isn’t as if you have much to lose. You can only gain. Trust me, Kara feels the same for you. She wouldn’t have done everything she has for if she didn’t. The two of you just happen to be useless and pick partners you could never be serious with because it is easier than admitting your real feelings.”_

_“I don’t like being called out.”_

_“Tough,” Sam smirks. “I don’t like being woken up at one in the morning because someone is having a full on meltdown after the woman they loved called them a villain.”_

_She purses her lips, lifting her head to meet Sam’s eyes straight on. “I was emotionally distressed.”_

_“Call it what you want, if you didn’t care for her like you kept claiming then it wouldn’t have upset you as much. You were inconsolable and blabbering on about how she hates you and you never thought things would turn out like it did.”_

_“So sue me.” Losing Kara’s seemingly inherent belief in her destroyed Lena. She pushed aside all of the mixed emotions, shoving them viciously into their assigned boxes, putting all of her attention on her experiments. Without friends, she had nothing but her work to fill the empty spaces in her life. When it fell apart and she finally saw Lex for the monster he was, how he preyed upon her loneliness to benefit himself in typical Lex fashion, she realized what a mistake she made. Kara, whether in the form of Supergirl or herself, believed in her despite her last name dictating they should be enemies, after all Luthors and Supers generally weren’t known for being gregarious to one another. She and Kara defied the odds. Kara didn’t keep the secret because of her lack of faith in Lena and she didn’t want to hurt her._

_“Look, she just got up and is headed to the bathroom. Go talk to her.” Sam shoves her out of the booth with a stern glare that says don’t return until you do._

_Lena skirts her way through the crowd, stopping short when the source of all of her frustration is right there. Instead of entering the restroom, Kara is pacing and muttering to herself._

_“I could just say I love you like I’m in love with you, Lena.” Kara shakes her head, dismissing the idea. “That’s too forward. She wouldn’t go for that approach.”_

_“I don’t know. You tell me Supergirl. I do appreciate a bold move.”_

_Kara pivots, freezing when her eyes land on Lena. “Lena.”_

_Lena saunters forward, stopping in front of Kara. She glances up, finding her favorite shade of blue. “Did you mean that?”_

_“That I’m in love with you?” She nods, unable to find words. Kara swallows her fear, taking a step closer. “Yes.”_

_Lena, a woman of action, forgoes using her words, finding a much better use for her mouth. She closes the gap between them, wrapping her arms around Kara’s neck, reaching up to capture Kara’s lips with hers. Her lips are soft, the hint of tequila and something fruiting coats her tongue. Kara presses her body closer, fingers tangling in Lena’s loose waves as she deepens the kiss._

_Kara’s body comes to life as she stumbles forward, chasing Lena’s lips. Lena is caged between the wall and Kara’s arms, and she can’t think of a better place. Lena can’t get close enough, but the need for air causes her to pull away first. Kara dips her head, nose brushing down her neck, mouth nipping lightly. Lena shivers. “You’re playing a dangerous game,” she moans as Kara sucks feverishly ay her pulse point. “Fuck.”_

_“Maybe this is the game I should’ve been playing all along.” The scraping of teeth along her collarbone nearly does her in. Her knees weaken and it is Kara’s arms that keep her upright. Kara’s hips grind into hers, and Lena feels the pressure building as she bucks against Kara. She needs more._

_“Your place or mine?” She groans as Kara nibbles on her collarbone, fingers brushing Lena’s thighs. While the idea of public sex is intoxication, she doesn’t want any interruptions. She wants Kara all to herself. She has waited all this time and she can calm her hormones until they get to a bed. “By the way, I neglected to mention, I’m in love with you too. It’s always been you.”_

_“You had me at your place or mine, but the last bit is really nice too.”_

* * *

“Then they went out for ice cream and had many, many more dates and kissed lots until they decided they wanted to be together forever. They secretly got married after moving in together and then wanted to add to their family. They had a small wedding for their friends and family where they also revealed they were going to be moms.” Oona sighs happily, clutching her chest with stars in her eyes. “And months later, the best twins in the world were born.”

“Modest too,” Kara taps her nose. “Your humility is astounding.”

“Who am I to deny mom’s words? Also why do you and mom go out for ice cream so much? Mom says it’s rots our teeth and she likes kale.” She shudders, wrinkling her nose.

Kara coughs uncomfortably, her cheeks turning a bright shade of pink.“Your mom has been known to be biased.” She coughs again. “And um she knows that I really like ice cream.”

“Na uh, mom is a scientist and they use facts like reporters,” her hair flies around her face with the quick movement of her head. “Anyway, Supergirl and the Princess bought a nice house for their family where they could always be together. Eventually, they had two more babies and the family was complete. The end.”

Lena read between the lines of Oona’s bedtime story. She is positive ice cream was a euphemism for sex, but to keep the story for innocent little ears, they modified certain details to make it less explicit. It explained Kara’s embarrassment. 

“You seemed to have adopted other people’s versions into the one we told you.” Kara comments thoughtfully.

“The best reports have multiple sources, can’t just get the story from the horse’s mouth. I had to verify the facts.”

“Oona wants to be the next Cat Grant,” Kara explains to Lena, lips pressing into a smile. “She thinks that she’s just ‘the most legendary and powerful woman in America mommy’.”

“So you want to be a reporter?”

“Yes, I love writing and telling stories, but the true ones people don’t get to hear. Next year in fifth grade, I’m hoping to get onto the school paper. They don’t let anyone younger join.”

She was serious. Lena shouldn’t find herself surprised by the girl’s enthusiasm at such a young age. Hadn’t Lena discovered her love for science and building and enhancing tech when she was around her age? “What of your siblings?”

“Eilís wants to be an engineer. She loves science and going to the lab with you.” Lena is happy one of her kids takes after her and she can mentor her. Talking about science has been her default since childhood when she struggled to socialize with her peers. “Orla, she is the creative one. She dances, sings, paints. She doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up. Liam, he likes sports. P.E. is his favorite part of the week and he likes recess. He kind of hates school and thinks it is boring.”

There was bound to be one. Lena liked school because it gave her a reprieve from her family. She didn’t have her mother constantly telling her what a disappointment she was. “What grade are you in?”

“I’m in the fourth. Orla is in second and Liam is in first. Eilís and I skipped kindergarten, but after that you put your foot down about allowing us to move rapidly through school.”

Lena felt like an outsider growing up. She was a child genius and chess prodigy, constantly younger than her peers. She endured a lot of taunting and teasing, and then went on to attend MIT at sixteen. She missed out on normal childhood and adolescent experiences, often finding herself envious of anyone not bearing the Luthor last name. They didn’t have to live up to the same expectations. It made sense why she wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen with her children. Children deserved to be kids while it lasted.

“Besides, none of us are geniuses like you. We’re smart, but I don’t think I could do calculus or understand any of those super complicated scientific theories you talk about all the time.” Kara snorts into her hand, smothering her giggles. “Or did you not talk about science all the time ten years ago?”

“Well… I did, but most people find it boring or didn’t understand.” After discovering Kara’s true origins, she found herself wondering if she knew more than she was saying. She was from an advanced alien civilization whose technology was eons ahead of earth’s.

“Mommy thinks science is boring. It’s kind of funny since she was going to join the science guild and then she came to earth. She realized she could do whatever she wanted as opposed to what was expected of her.”

Before she can inquire about Kara’s life on Krypton, a yawn escapes Lena. Her eyes droop and she feels her energy waning. “I think you should get some rest.”

Lena panics and her heart starts to race when Kara gets up. “Wait!” Kara turns to her. “Are you leaving?” She may not be where she was six months ago, but the thought of Kara leaving scares her. Kara and Oona are the only people she knows, and she fears being alone. The world is a different place and this isn’t like after Lex rewrote history. Things are vastly different than when she last went to sleep.

“No, but I am going to get some coffee. I have some work to catch up on that I’ve neglected. I figured now is as good as time as any to do it.”

“Okay.” She wants to say she hasn’t forgiven the blonde and that she is just scared, but the words don’t come. It was a nice moment and she doesn’t want to hash out anything in front of Oona.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even if I was rich, I wouldn't buy an almost billion dollar company just for a friend even if it was my best friend. Maybe a car or something, but a whole company, that is love, especially since she just sold the company as a way to get back at Kara. Season 5 was basically a break-up.  
> How adorable is Oona?
> 
> While this chapter wasn’t angsty, it doesn’t mean we are out of the woods yet.
> 
> check me out on [ _tumblr_ ](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)


	6. and you're the hero flying around to save face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it gets a little angsty...

Lena shifts as she waits for the arrival of the neurologist her doctor arranged for her. Beside her sits Kara who seems unable to control her own fidgeting, constantly bouncing her leg, which was driving her crazy. The blonde has barely glanced her way in the last few hours after Alex picked up Oona. She hadn’t had an opportunity to see the older Danvers sister as Kara did it all while she showered and changed into something that wasn’t a hospital gown.  


There was something to be said about tiny blessings. She wasn’t mentally equipped to deal with Alex when she had never felt less herself in her life. The last conversation she can remember between them was before the literal end of the world and she made it clear where they stood after everything. She wouldn’t be forgetting. She had a feeling Alex had warned Kara away from her, especially after the Kryptonite incident. If she could put off seeing her for longer, nothing would please or ease her anxieties more. 

The clothes Kara brought her weren’t any she recognized and her mood soured from there. Realistically, she knew it was unlikely she owned the same exact wardrobe from ten years ago, but part of her still felt like this was all just a dream. She hadn’t meant to take her anger out on Kara. None of this was Kara’s fault, she tried to remind herself of that, but it was hard to erase over six months of anger and blame pushing. Their new normal was all she knew, then she woke up in a world where nothing was as it was.

Kara did manage to remember to grab glasses for Lena. Normally she wouldn’t allow anyone to catch her in them, but she didn’t care very much about what people thought of her. Everyone believed she was dead anyway, so it settled some of her worries. She needed to see as everything was blurrier. Her range of vision had decreased over the last decade much to her displeasure. She required the glasses more than she did in the past.

The glasses were the easiest part of her day. Upon awaking, she noticed she was alone. It provided her a moment to gather her thoughts in peace without the interruption of spouses and children. Just the mention of those two words had her mind reeling. She still hadn’t fully processed all of the implications of her and Kara. After discovering all of her lies, Lena closed her heart off to the Kryptonian woman, swearing to herself she would keep her at a distance going forward. The days of granting Kara uninhibited access to her life were over. She had to create boundaries, build walls, and draw lines in the figurative sand to protect herself.

All she could focus on was how she was played for the fool again by someone else claiming to love her. Whether or not it was Kara’s intention to make her feel that way, Lena had given her the power to do so. She gave her the keys to her heart and with them, Kara unlocked Lena’s impenetrable walls and ultimately broke Lena’s heart when she realized all of the ways she made herself emotionally vulnerable to Kara, whilst Kara continued to lie. She presented two different faces and used each to get what she wanted from Lena. She found every time she so much as glimpsed in Kara's direction, the anguish was quick to follow. Kara broke her heart after promising she would always be there for Lena. Lena believed Kara would be the one to break the cyclical nature of Lena’s life until it all came crashing down with a few words, aimed where she was weak. She should’ve known not to underestimate her brother even if he was constantly underestimating her. 

With the light of a new day, she doesn’t know what her next moves are going forward. It wasn’t as if she had access to her funds or a place to go upon release from the hospital except with Kara. It was freeing and frightening for someone whose favorite game was chess; Lena liked to view all possible moves before making a move. It was that calculated thinking that led her to the path she was on.

She found herself relieved when she heard a disagreement brewing in the hall. She recognized the voices immediately and stretched her senses to try and pick up what was happening between them. They spoke too fast for her to understand everything, but she got the gist of it.

Kara and Oona strolled in half an hour later, with Kara shooting her an apologetic smile, mumbling about the cafeteria and growing half-Kryptonians. Oona had a sullen face and her arms were tightly crossed as she glared at her mother. Kara wasn’t deterred in the least, ignoring the young girl’s theatrics, but the whole situation made Lena uncomfortable. Her lack of experience with children that weren’t Ruby was glaring, so she kept her mouth shut and allowed the blonde to do all of the talking. She wasn’t in a position to contribute as a parent.

Kara snapped at Oona as she muttered some passive comment, the girl instantly shutting her mouth, returning to her default glare. She sat back on the sofa, fiddling with her watch, muttering angrily in a few different languages.

The doctor arrived not long after, settling some of the rising tension in the room, informing Lena she could shower if she liked and she had an appointment at eleven with the hospital’s best neurologist after they would discuss discharging her as there wasn’t anything aside from the amnesia physically wrong with her. Lena asked a few questions of her own to gain a sense of what her next steps should be. She kept the doctor there for longer than she should have to prevent being left alone with the warring Kryptonians.

Last night was a murky haze for her, and while she enjoyed the story, she felt disconnected. Nothing about it triggered any memories or feelings for her. It was just that, a story. It happened. She believed that. All she had to do was look into Mara’s eyes to determine the truth. It just didn’t happen to her. There was no spark and perhaps it was a result of the storyteller’s version, or it was that the memories were gone. Whatever the reason, she felt unmoored and she hated it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, but then again when had anything in her life gone as it should have. Her entire conception was a mistake her father never intended and from there her life went off script. 

She excused herself with a polite smile she was positive Kara knew was fake, stumbled a bit out of bed as she regained her balance, snagging the bag Kara packed in her haste to leave, hurrying to the bathroom to escape Kara’s stifling presence and to finally have a minute to feel like herself. She took a few deep breaths as she tried to sweep away the shattered pieces of her heart. Looking at Kara reminded her of the night on the balcony, the cold, distant blue of her eyes, and the dispassion in her voice as she told Lena that she was done. If Lena was going to work with her brother, Kara wouldn't bother with her except to take her down if it turned out she went the way of the Luthors. The moment was seared into her memory and for the life of her she can't erase the feelings left behind. 

So she indulged in a long shower, took time to brush her hair, and stayed in the bathroom as long as was physically possible without causing worry. 

By the time she returned the only occupant remaining in the hospital room was Kara.

Kara avoided looking at her and to be honest, she didn’t have much to say to the other woman in return. It was preferable to the constant stream of apologies and the begging for her to understand, to empathize with Kara’s position. As much as she wanted to consider herself some evolved human, capable of letting bygones be bygones, for her it was ten years ago and she was in the thick of it. All of the memories were fresh and unforgettable as if they had just happened, leaving a stain she couldn’t scrub away no matter how hard she tried. And she did try.

The blonde seemed to get the hint though and worked quietly on her laptop. If she were anyone else, Lena might have asked about her job, but the dynamics between them were downright confusing. Broaching conversation wasn’t an option when she didn’t know what would slip off her tongue. Lena took a seat on the edge of the bed. There were questions burning on the tip of the tongue, but her pride struggled to form the words. She wasn’t supposed to care this much. She spent a lot of time cultivating the detached persona she wore like armor whenever the hero was around. If she pretended she didn’t care, one day she wouldn’t, right?

“If you’re wondering who is running the company in your absence, Jess and Sam stepped up to the plate. The board tried some shady, unsurprising power play, trying to capitalize on your absence, which ultimately failed as they didn’t have the collective shares necessary to initiate a hostile takeover. I had controlling interest as your wife, inheriting your shares with the presumption you were dead, whilst also being trustee of the children’s shares in the company. I know what it meant- means to you.” Apparently Kara could still know some things without her having voiced it.   


While running her family’s company wasn’t in the original plans of her life, being CEO was something she enjoyed. She gnashed her teeth every time she walked into her former office to find her brother there with his smug grin as he lauded his victory over her. He had stolen the company right from under without considering her feelings in typical Lex fashion. At least she regained control of the company because her brother had never really cared for it, only using it to enact whatever plot he had going on.

Lena hadn’t known how to respond to the blonde. Kara answered her most pressing concern. Her family company was all she ever really had. She remembered the feeling of anger clawing at her insides when she discovered her brother had taken it and all of her accomplishments away from her, being the narcissist he was he couldn’t allow her to have that one thing, especially as he wanted to ruin Kara’s life and save himself from death. He hadn’t cared about what rewriting his history meant for the people in his life, specifically her, focused entirely on eliminating Leviathan. She supposed she wasn’t surprised that neither her brother nor mother were mentioned as it was inevitable with their proclivity for nefarious deeds that something happened likely resulting in their incarceration. She wasn’t prepared for the answers to the questions about them as of yet, not ready to hear how she screwed up and made another series of bad decisions. She had a feeling her actions over the last few months and her bold decision to align herself with her brother despite knowing he would betray her in the end would come back for her in the end.

“You can use your phone. I-it isn’t the one that was on the plane, so it might be missing data from the day of the accident but you updated regularly. I logged into it for you and now that I’m saying that it sounds incredibly invasive from someone who doesn’t even qualify as a friend in your current frame of mind.” Her blue eyes dropped to her lap as she pressed her lips together to keep herself from saying anything else.

Lena had rarely known her to restrain herself in her presence. Talking was like an Olympic sport for Kara. She almost always knew what to say. Words and feelings came easier to her, or at least regarding certain subjects. Others she had a very tight leash on her tongue and kept herself closed off.

The brunette smiled faintly, picking up the abandoned device from yesterday to continue her investigation in her life. She ignored her texts. She couldn’t face diving into that part of her life. It seemed invasive and too intimate for her to handle in her present state. Her social media was out of the question too. She didn’t want to know how happy she was. It would serve to only make her feel worse.

Her thumb hovered uncertainly over the photo gallery before she tapped the icon, revealing hundreds and hundreds of photos of children, specifically the ones who were related to her, though there were some unfamiliar faces mixed in with her kids. She clicked on one of the twins, immediately able to notice the difference between the two. Having met Oona she knew which side the blue was on and which side was the green. Her sister’s was the opposite. She wondered if they were mirror twins.

She couldn’t imagine how anyone related to her was coordinated enough to play sports as she went through the gallery. Her boarding school had an extensive list of activities to fulfill the gym requirement and she picked ones requiring very little physicality for the most part. She fenced and went to the gym to hone her skills, but it was mostly to impress her mother, never something she might have chosen on her own without some prodding. In the end it worked about as well as anything did in impressing her mother. She was still invisible and unwanted. All her mother had time for was her precious son. That was something these children weren’t. She could tell despite there being four of them, they were adored by their parents and showered with love and affection. 

The twins were basketball players and swimmers. They were extremely active and played on opposite basketball teams, likely to avoid any drama that came with play with their siblings. They were kind of cute in their little uniforms. Lena had never played on a team in her life and in elementary school was often picked last during P.E. when it came time to pick teams. She had no experience with these types of sports. Kids told her to stick to the edges and stay out of their way. 

She knew from what Oona said, Eilís was the one interested in all things science and often the two of them worked together. There were pictures of Lena and her down in Lena’s lab working on a joint project and there were more photos from a science fair with the girl beaming at the camera with her blue ribbon firmly grasped in her hand. There was pride in her expression and a touch of smugness.

Despite being twins, she could spot the differences in personality and interests just through the pictures. Many of Oona’s featured her reading to her younger siblings or at a desk writing with the same concentrated look Kara had. She even had the little crinkle between her brows. There was a picture where she stood behind a podium with that same look of pride her twin wore at the science fair. Lena realized she recognised it as one of her own when she was smug about her achievements or some new invention. She had inherited it from her father and apparently passed it onto her daughters. 

Scrolling through, she found a video of little girls dressed in pink tutus. She clicked on it, curious about the content as ballet hadn’t been her thing after one disastrous lesson when she was five. She searched through the rows, her eyes finally landing on Orla, the youngest girl. Her blonde hair was smoothed back into a sleek bun and her gaze determined as she waited for the music to start. The other children waved happily at their parents, Orla did not. She spared her mothers a tiny smile before a concentrated expression reappeared as she took her cue on stage. The music started, transforming her face immediately as she connected to the moves and the music. Everything was incredibly fluid. Lena swore at one point she had closed her eyes as she twirled.

There was something whimsical about watching her practically float across the stage with ease. Her movements were graceful and poised, and she seemed to know what she was doing. She wouldn’t call it bias as she personally didn’t know the girl, but in her humble opinion, she was miles above the others in terms of natural talent and ability. After the dance concluded, the girls took their bows and Orla winked cheekily at her parents as she grinned unabashedly, simply delighted with her performance, prancing giddily offstage.

Last but not least was the boy Liam. He was short in comparison to his sisters. There was a little over a year separating he and Orla, yet she appeared to tower over him. What he lacked in height, he made up for in his sturdy appearance. He was into martial arts and baseball and seemed like a fierce competitor. He had the same determined expression as his sisters.

She recalled Kara being a fan of baseball, idly wondering if that was how he came to like it. Sports weren’t her thing at all, she stuck to the sciences where she was most capable. “Kara?” It was only the second or third time she had said her name since waking up the previous day. She made it a personal goal to not use her name. It helped her keep some distance. 

Her head snapped up instantly. “Hmmm?” Her brows knitted together and there was the divot. Lena hated how she recognized her expressions. She really had gotten too close after having sworn after the nasty business with Lex and his many life sentences to stop anyone from getting too close.

She bit her lip, growing shy as she considered her question. Her emotions were a mess and one emotion would overshadow another until she had no idea what she was feeling anymore. Nothing made sense. “Nothing,” she said. She ignored the pang of guilt when she caught the disappointment on the blonde’s face.

She didn’t know how to talk to her about any of this. Talking wasn’t one of her skills, especially when concerning things of a private nature. Kara wasn’t really happy to see her. It wasn’t she who the blonde wanted. She wanted the updated model, the one she feared she wouldn’t become. She wanted her wife and that was decidedly not Lena.

An hour later, they walked with a foot separating them to the neurologist’s office three floors below. In the elevator, she snuck glances every few minutes at Kara, silently judging her untidy blonde hair to her wrinkled clothing. She can’t remember a time when they were friends when saw her less put together. Then again, they have never been in circumstances such as this. 

As they wait for her neurologist to return with the scans, Lena sighs audibly. Kara shoots her worried glance, ultimately choosing to remain silent. She can’t decide if she is pleased by it or hurt. For so long, Kara was the one person who cared about or pretended to anyway. In the beginning, everything felt so full of promise and for the first time, there was this bright light shining in her life, brimming with endless positivity and possibility. And then the light was abruptly snuffed out, leaving her floundering in the dark and cold with nothing left to comfort her.

The glasses were forcibly ripped off and she finally saw Kara as she was and not who she pretended to be, changing everything she thought she knew. The inevitable problem isn’t the betrayal, it is the constant swirling of anger, pain, and ultimately sadness left behind in the wake of Lex’s truth bomb. He blasted his way through her walls, attacking her where she was weakest, and Kara was her weakness, her kryptonite. Those three emotions were completely intertwined, she couldn’t separate one from the other if she tried. She thought there should be a new name to describe them.

There is a knock and the doctor enters with a pleasant, friendly smile, not that it does much to lift Lena’s mood. She doesn’t have the patience to entertain pleasantries. What she requires is some honesty and more information about her current diagnosis. She doesn’t want to walk around as only half a person and that’s what the missing parts represent.

“Hello Lena and Kara,” at least she hadn’t used Missus. Lena clenched her jaw every time someone called her Mrs. Danvers-Luthor. “I apologize for keeping you waiting. I was visiting another patient and then waiting to receive your scans from your CT.”

Dr. Meadows drones on a bit about what the scans and Lena tunes her out, while Kara listens attentively to the doctor. She caught words like ‘temporary’ and ‘hopefully not permanent’, but it was hard to determine the cause of her amnesia with six months lapsing from when she was last seen.

“Is there anything I can do to help her? I mean I know from movies and television that sometimes people need to be around what’s familiar to jog their memory. I don’t know if that’s accurate.”

“Typical,” Lena mutters, casting a sideways glare at Kara. “Always the hero.”

It slips her mind Kara has super hearing and comments made under her breath can be heard by the woman. She turns her head, shooting Lena an irritated glare before facing forward.

The doctor clasps her hands together, leaning forward on her desk. “Sometimes surrounding them with familiar things can help fill in the gaps. Lena did suffer a head injury, which could be the cause or it could be the trauma of what happened to her. The brain is strange and fascinating, and without having all the facts, we have to make estimated guesses.”

“So it could help and it might not?” She frowns.

Anger curls in her chest like a ravenous beast and she feels the rage coursing through her veins, fueling her, the taste of bitterness coating her tongue as Kara continues to speak to the doctor on her behalf. Lena’s knuckles turn white from clenching the chair as she attempts to temper the escalating emotions inside of her. The anger has been there for a long time and has only grown with this new problem and new reality.“Stop it,” she snaps. “I’m right here. It isn’t your job to fix me Kara. I’m not one of your fan girls.”

After finding out what lay underneath those glasses, Lena hadn’t known what to expect from the hero. Most of her interactions with Kara once everything got blown to hell were Kara’s constant apologies and Lena’s apathetic refusal to let her off the hook. While technically one lie, that one lie stretched into hundreds of lies, involving others outside of Kara to outright lie to her face, turn her into an oblivious fool. All Kara did was make pathetic excuses for why she did what she did instead of owning up to it, she lacked all of the steel Supers were known for, so she is taken aback by the cloud of anger hovering over Kara as she faces Lena. It is the spark she remembers from their first interview when Lena showed her the alien detection device.

“Excuse me?”

Lena is a Luthor. One of the things her mother taught her that could be considered useful was to never back down from a challenge, from anyone whether they were superior or inferior. Luthors didn't show weakness and if they were going to start something, then they damn well better finish it. “You heard what I said. You always have to fix every fucking thing as if it’s broken, never understanding that some things can’t just be fixed because you want them to. It's your God-complex at work again.”

Kara bristles and Lena worries for a second lasers might shoot out of her eyes as anger rolls off of her. “Oh here we go again.” She throws her arms up.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Her Luthor upbringing usually stopped her before she vigorously discussed or perhaps fought was the appropriate word about things of a private nature in a public forum. There was a reason her name littered the rags, yet not a single word was factual in nature. She preferred to keep her business to herself. “Come on, tell me.” She goads Kara, smirking as she predictably takes the bait.

“Just that you're always so keen to blame everything on everyone else instead of accepting your portion of the blame. You refuse to hear the other side like right now when you were passively listening as Dr. Meadows explained your prognosis, but then get upset when I ask questions because you feel I'm overstepping my boundaries. Newsflash Lena, we are married.” She flashes a blue rock in her direction. Lena doesn’t have time to take a closer look at the ring, but she does inhale sharply.

“Oh there it is!” She exclaims loudly, instantly jumping to her feet. “It’s because I’m a Luthor. And no in my mind, you're nothing but a lying, conniving backstabber. You're nothing to me. We aren’t anything to each other.”

"Yeah if that were actually true then we wouldn't have gotten married. You may not remember it with your messed up head, but it happened." Kara snorts derisively. "Also you're one to talk about lies: kryptonite, Sam, pretending we were still friends and you were in the dark about my secret, or helping your brother? None of that rings a bell to you, really?"

Lena flushes hotly. If she didn't know it would result in a broken hand, she would've punched Kara.

She shakes her head. "This could just be some VR Lex created to fuck with me. Besides I did what I had to." 

"See there you go again always drawing the worst conclusions and justifying your actions."

"Yeah because experience has taught me that it's what I should do."

Kara rolls her eyes, muttering indecipherably under breath. Lena’s brows draw together as she recognizes the words as Kryptonian swears. She doesn’t even know Kara’s language. “Hardly, you’re being dramatic and behaving irrationally because that’s what you do when you want to push people away. If you would pull your head out of your ass you would realize that not everything is about you being a Luthor or your shitty childhood where no one loved you and it was a psychological minefield everyday until you went off to boarding school. But of course _you_ can’t because you only care how it affects you, screw everyone else who cares about you. Your stupid ass one strike policy hasn’t benefitted you all that well if you’re seriously willing to walk away from people who genuinely care about you.”

Lena scoffs. “Oh please, if you cared about me, I wouldn’t have found out from my brother, gloating one last time after I shot him about how I had been played the fool by you. You are or were my kryptonite. The only reason you told me anything is because you felt guilty. You told fucking Nia when you barely knew her, but me someone who had been your best friend for over two years at that point was kept in the dark.” She brushes away her tears. It wasn’t the time for crying. She could hear Lillian in her head scolding her for being emotional.

Lena hears the door click and notices the doctor's absence. 

“I can’t say I’m sorry enough for not telling you, but you do understand that you had some very extreme reactions to the news, or did you forget with the confusion of a new earth how you planned to reveal my identity because you were fucking pissed off at me? Like Rao, I knew I hurt you, but to think you would’ve done that to me, it is soul crushing. So tell me when was I supposed to tell you? When I thought there was a chance you sided with your mother? Oh I know when you bought a company and became my boss because that’s something I want to tell my boss about. My first boss tried to fire me when she began to put it together. Or when I was almost killed within an inch of my life by Reign?” Lena flinches at the reminder and something niggles at the back of her mind. “And then you hated me as Supergirl, so that definitely decreased the chances of you reacting positively when I finally told you. I could just imagine how you would look at me when you realized that you talked to me about me. Please tell me when there would’ve been a time where you wouldn’t have felt betrayed and things weren’t hectic.”

Lena won’t admit there is some truth in what Kara has said. Maybe at the start she wouldn’t have gotten angry, but she also didn’t know the blonde well enough then to continue viewing her as Kara. She would’ve seen a Super. On top of that, there was always some crisis in need of their attention. Tensions between her and Supergirl weren’t great either. It was the two sides of their relationship colliding. 

“You should’ve still told me,” she says stubbornly. Hearing it from Kara was better than the alternative. She wanted Kara to say it to her face and by the time she did, it was too late.

Kara pinches the bridge of her nose. “ _Fucking cannot with her,”_ she grunts. “ _Of all years she could’ve gone back to it had to be that one like why couldn’t it be when we first met or even the height of Reign? But no, of course not, that would be too easy. It had to be the year when she hated everything to do with me and we had some of our most unpleasant interactions where every little thing I did pissed her off.”_

“ _Yeah well I’m not fond of you at the moment Supergirl. You think I want to be in this position? Dependent on you because apparently we are married.”_ She spits the words out, her voice laced with venom. " _All of this feels fake to me. I don't feel tethered to reality and seeing those_ _pictures of children, there was no recognition for me. This isn’t my life and yet it is."_

The blonde blinks at her, something akin to hope blossoms on her face. Lena furrows her brow. “ _You understood that?”_ Lena fails to comprehend the significance of Kara's question.

_“I speak English.”_

_“You’re not speaking English. You’re speaking Kryptonese.”_ The grin on her face is blinding like the sun. Kara, at least has the good sense to not hug her, but it doesn't stop her from smiling like an idiot. 

_“_ Was I?” She questions uncertainly. She didn’t realize she swapped one language for another. She was just responding to Kara’s words. “It just happened. I don’t think I picked up you were speaking another language.”

“You were or are fluent. It took you about two years and that’s just because of the structure of the language more than anything.” Kara’s shoulders slump and her body sags as if the fight has stolen all of the energy from her. Her face is weary and Lena can see the toll all of this is taking on her. Guilt trickles through her as it occurs to her that this isn’t exactly Kara’s ideal reality either. “Look can we save the fighting for later, we are in a hospital and I would like to leave this hospital without giving people something to gossip about? We are public figures and I don’t even want to imagine the media storm when the story of your survival hits. I want to get out of here before they find out.”

Lena hadn’t considered the media in all of this. She isn’t any kind of camera ready, nor is she ready to talk about anything pertaining to her life. She is barely herself and she is clinging to what she does know because that’s all she has.

“You can yell at me for all the ways I’ve wronged you later. I just want to do it privately as opposed to in a public domain.”

Lena feels the heat creep into her face. She is the one who provoked the argument and refused to back down. “I- yeah um,” she scratches her neck. “Um we should go find my doctor about getting me discharged.” She keeps her distance as they leave the confines of the office, each ignoring the curious looks from the staff. Lena walks with her head held high even though confidence is the last thing she feels.

At least one positive thing came out of their fight, Lena is feeling hopeful. Maybe it isn’t all gone. She still is distrustful of Kara and can’t seem to let go of her past issues, but she did it once and maybe there's a possibility it can happen again. As she sneaks a glimpse at the other woman through the fringe of her lashes, she supposes she could’ve done worse than marrying Kara. Maybe her relationship with Kara isn't as black and white as she is making it. She feels a modicum of guilt for unleashing the way she did as Kara was just trying to help. It really wasn't as if she was paying attention to the doctor as the blonde said. 

"You know Lena, we can't go back, but we can go forward. This isn't easy for me and I have all of my memories. I guess what I'm trying to say is you can keep your anger right now if that's the only thing that feels real to you, just know that it is okay to let it go if you don't need it anymore." She licks her lips. “And- just know that I’ll still be there for you. You’re not alone. You might not believe me and that’s okay too. I’ll just have to prove it to you.”

Despite everything Lena believes her. She won’t tell her that, but she thinks Kara already knows if the tiny smiles gracing her face is any indication. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out on [ _tumblr_ ](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)  
> Let me know what you think


	7. just she and i together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena reunites with some familiar faces.

Kara slides into the driver’s seat, discreetly glancing to the occupied passenger seat, or she thought anyway until Lena shifted under her gaze. She smiles sheepishly, starting the car, and fastening her seatbelt. She takes her time checking the mirrors and making any adjustments just to prolong their departure.

The last twenty-four hours have been surreal. She has pinched herself several times to assure that this isn’t some beautiful dream she’s concocted or the disastrous effects of Black Mercy. It wasn’t. If it was her perfect world, her wife would have come back to her with all of her memories intact. Lena is missing a decade’s worth of memories and has no recollection of anything after the night she landed on her balcony, lambasting her for siding with her brother. Disappointment crawled through her veins when she heard Lena explain to the doctor the last thing she remembered. It explained why Lena looked at her with fire in her eyes. She wasn’t the Lena she said goodbye to six months ago, and Kara didn’t have the words to describe the pain she was in. 

She has caught herself a few times staring at Lena, scrutinizing her as she slept, observing her as she went through her phone, even keeping an ear on her heartbeat when she was left to her own devices. She is Lena but she isn’t. 

Kara doesn’t know how to give her space when space has in the context Lena desires been nonexistent between them for a long time. They had eradicated all the barriers that lay between them with their many secrets and the things they were less forthcoming about. Now, she is back to square one with a Lena that is only with her because she fears being alone and has no one else to turn to when the world isn’t making sense.

Lena kept her distance and approached everything with a wariness she hadn’t observed in the other woman in years. Her eyes betrayed her and Kara saw the hesitation when the nurse wheeled her out of the hospital. She can’t say it didn’t hurt to know Lena didn’t trust her. There was a tightness in her chest, and she had to remind herself to take a few deep breaths. This wasn’t about her right now. She had to keep her focus on Lena. She would worry about herself later.

“Um,” she curses internally at her less than stellar conversation starter. She wracks her brains for what it is she wants to say. “You can ask me anything. I can’t imagine it is a comfortable situation, and I’ll be forthright with you.” She had learned her lesson about lying and the consequences of it. “So please if there’s something you’re curious about just ask.”

She hopes Lena doesn’t detect the nerves in her voice or notice how her grip tightened on the wheel as she pulled away from the hospital. She doesn’t need to look at her to know Lena is tense and her anxiety is off the charts. She is out of her depth. Nothing is as she remembers, and Kara can’t imagine the dissonance between the past and the present.

“When Oona told the story of how we got together last night, I watched your face. There was something in your eyes that said it wasn’t the full story.”

Kara oscillates between her desire to be honest and her need to go slow with Lena. She isn’t sure the other woman is prepared for the full story. “It’s a heavy story. I can give you the cliff notes, but the official version would take longer than our drive. We haven’t told the kids the full version.”

Lena bites her lip and nods. “Okay, the shortened version will do for the moment.” Kara is pleased with her acquiescence.

“We did have sex that night, but um well you were gone before i woke up the next morning.” That was a blow to her confidence and she tried not to cry at the absence of the other woman, but she had suppressed her emotions for long enough. Waking up to an empty bed when she was expecting someone to be beside her crushed her. She spiralled into despair and couldn’t slow the endless stream of tears. She thought she had known heartbreak with Mon-El, and then she woke up that morning. 

“You ghosted me. You wouldn’t respond to any of my texts or my calls. I tried to visit you at L-Corp, but every time I stopped by you were _busy.”_ Lena flinches. “I ended up taking a leave of absence from work. I needed to get my head on straight and determine what I wanted to do. I can’t say it wasn’t one of the more painful experiences of my life thinking I had done something that caused you to run away from me, maybe even hate me. I thought I had ruined it all… _again._ ” So she ran away to escape from any and all reminders of Lena. It was a coping mechanism, one that was more of a band-aid to her problems than a permanent solution. She spent time in Midvale with her adoptive mother before spending a month in Argo. Then she found a therapist who helped her begin to sort herself out. “I can admit I’m not the greatest at handling my emotions, which is why I really don’t hold how you’re feeling against you.”

“Aren’t you Supergirl? Since when do you run away?”

Kara snorts. It isn’t an attractive sound, but she can’t help it. There was a lot she and Lena avoided talking about when they were just ‘best friends’. They often scratched the surface, retreating when things got too heavy, afraid the other would see all of their broken parts and split. She wishes they had been more honest then because they were similar. They were runners. Kara can admit that about herself… now at any rate. When life as Kara Danvers got messy, she retreated into her role as Supergirl. She tried to erase who she was to avoid painful truths, believing there was no space in her life for Kara Danvers. She had to eliminate something and her private life was a disaster and riddled with unbearable heartache.

Kara turns on her blinker, checking her mirrors before switching lanes. She spares a second to look at Lena who is looking at her with sharp eyes, studying her. “Having powers doesn’t suddenly erase all of my fears.” She finally admits with a tiny shrug. “It may make me the strongest on the block but strength doesn’t equate to bravery. You can be strong and be a coward. I’ve got my fears and insecurities like anyone else.” She’ll never claim to be impervious to anything. She is far from perfect.

“I guess I’m struggling to assimilate Supergirl into Kara. When you were Supergirl, you had this confidence and casual bravado with your intimidating pose. It didn’t really seem as if much bothered you. You had quite a bite.”

She understands the point Lena is making. Her two distinct personalities were on opposite ends of the spectrum, often clashing when she was in close proximity to Lena. “Being Supergirl helped somewhat with my confidence, but I’m still a person. Before arriving on earth, I was a normal girl. I didn’t have any powers. The most special thing about me was my talent in the sciences as everyone was smart on Krypton. We were prideful of our intellectual nature. I was going to be the youngest person accepted into the science guild before my planet exploded. You might assume all of the awkwardness is part of the disguise but some of that really is me. I do get flustered when there is no cape to keep people away and from paying too much attention to me. I am clumsy. I was clumsy on my home planet and it was heightened by the differences in gravity and my powers.”

She had broken all sorts of things when she first arrived in the Danvers’ household. She felt guilty every time a lamp broke, or silverware bent when she used too much force. Eliza brushed away all of her apologies, smiling at her, and telling her it was okay. She hadn’t believed her until her kids started breaking things as kids were prone to do.

Lena purses her lips. Kara knows she is thinking of her next question, pondering whether or not to ask it, potentially risking offending her. Kara is beyond being insulted by anything Lena could say to her at this point. They’ve been through it all.

Kara’s ears prick at the sound of Lena sliding her tongue over her lips. Her heart rate increases and she can smell the change in her scent. Lena is anxious. “Do you miss who you were? Do yo- no uh just forget it. I’m sorry.” Timidness is somewhat foreign to Kara from Lena. She has only seen her behave this way a handful of times. Kara shoots her a smile, hoping to ease some of her worries.

“Not many people know this, and I doubt even Lex knew much about it in all the research he did.” Kara’s eyes dart to Lena as she navigates into the turning lane. “We had mostly ceased procreating by natural means. That he probably knew. We had a birthing matrix, which meant nearly everything about you was predetermined. People were usually paired together based on compatibility. Some chose their matches based on love, but feelings weren’t something we often were in touch with like here on earth.” Kara struggled in the beginning to adapt to her feelings and accept their validity in determining her choices.“Decisions were made based on logic and reason. Kryptonians could be cold and overly rational, especially in the science, judicial, and military guilds.” She thinks of her mother, how easily she imprisoned her own sister and did nothing to stop the destruction of their planet. “There was no room for emotions or irrationality. It was probably one of the contributing reasons for our downfall. Compassion and empathy weren’t used in decision making, at least not in a few generations. We were focused on productivity.”

“Productivity?”

“Yes, we had to choose a guild or one would be chosen for us. Most people followed what their family had done. My Aunt Lara, Kal’s mom, she chose the science, despite her family having come from a different guild. My father’s family had been in the science guild for generations. I excelled in science and never felt compelled to go into legislation like my mother.” She pauses, slowing the car at the sight of the sea of red. She focuses her hearing and there’s an accident up ahead. “We’re going to be here a while. There’s a multi-car pile up.”

“That’s okay.” Lena turns in her seat to face Kara. “I don’t mind.”

Kara suspects she wants to avoid what is to come, and is enjoying the distraction Kara is providing. “Science ruled us. Not to sound boastful but as a species Kryptonians are intellectually superior and we were eons ahead of Earth. Though in my opinion, there is better entertainment here. We didn’t have movies or tv. We did have AI, but our technology was vastly different than what exists here. We stored all of our knowledge in crystals. I realize I never answered your original question though,” she chuckles. “I don’t think you can miss someone you aren’t. I grieved the loss of who I was, but a lot of those emotions are compounded with the loss of my planet, my parents, and my arrival on Earth twenty-four years after my cousin. I had to give up that life when I embraced my life here and joined the Danvers family. I’ve lived here longer than I lived on Krypton. I had a chance to go back to the city of my birth and live my life there.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She wasn’t that Kara anymore. Kara Zor-El would always be a part of who she was at her core, but Kara Zor-El also died the day her planet exploded. She had to become someone else. Her many identities folded in on themselves until she had trouble deciding who she was. It was a constant battle, but her therapist definitely helped her gain some clarity on the matter.

“I didn’t belong there anymore. I went to dinner with my childhood best friend the second time I visited, thinking I could just go back and claim the life taken from me. All I could think about when I was there was how I didn’t fit in there anymore. I may have grown up with Zara, but after the loss of our planet, we lived two different lives. She continued to grow up surrounded by our people and culture and I didn’t. I thought being with my mom in Argo was where I was meant to be and at first it seemed right until it started to hit me I had a life and a lot more people in National City to miss. I’ll always be a Kryptonian and my mom is still my mom. They just aren’t who I consider as my tribe anymore. Being with them didn’t feel right, not like game nights with everyone or our brunch dates.”

Lena sinks into the seat with a peculiar expression on her face. She stares at Kara as if she’s never really seen her. “It occurs to me I met your mom.”

“You did,” she nods, laughing. “You’ve met her tons of times since then, but yeah the first time you met her she was _Supergirl’s_ mom, not mine.”

“Huh,” Lena says. “You look like her. Did you get your blonde hair from your father?”

“Neither actually, my dad had dark hair too.”

“Why not choose sciences on Earth?”

Kara is slightly thrown by the abrupt shift, but she promised to answer anything Lena asked. She has done her best not to break any promises she makes. If she can’t keep it, she refuses to make it because her word means something and she hates to disappoint those around her.

“I expected that one. You asked it before, you’re a little predictable. I don’t mind answering again. Science here is a bit different than it is there. There are limitations to what currently technology is capable of. Also while gifted in sciences, it isn’t my passion. I like providing people with the truth and a different version of events than what they might see. Being a reporter has allowed me to focus on things I care about like alien rights and exposing people like… well your brother. Yeah, I was good at calculus and physics, chemistry took some adjusting. The periodic tables aren’t the same. Earth Science was confusing as the terrain is different from Krypton’s. There were landscapes and colors you couldn’t imagine. There was the Scarlet Jungle, the Gold Volcano, the Fire Falls, and the Jewel Mountains.”

“Are the memories still vivid?”

Kara shakes her head, inching the car forward. “No, the memories have dulled over time, sort of like how the dyes in clothing fade over years.” Some things are clearer as she spent time cementing them to her memory, refusing to forget them. She held onto them tightly and kept them close. Out of the two Kryptonians living on Earth, she was the only one who had lived part of her life on the planet. In her adolescent mind that translated to her having to preserve their people’s culture. “It’s been almost thirty years for me. While you can see the light of Rao in the sky and Krypton if you look really close, they aren’t really there anymore. They’ve been gone for fifty years.” She says it so matter of factly that Lena is taken aback.

“I thought losing my planet and my life there with everyone I loved was the hardest thing I had suffered in my life, and while it might not please you to hear me say this, it was losing you Lena. Home isn’t a planet. Home is the people you surround yourself with and you’ve been my home for longer than I was willing to admit.”

“Oh.” The surprise in her voice isn’t all that surprising. No one in Lena’s life has ever stuck around and if they tried, Lena found a way to push them out. Kara understood she couldn’t trust the motives of others, and struggled endlessly to believe people wanted her around. She didn’t blame her for it. Her childhood after her mother died wasn’t filled with love and affection. She was taught to play a role, to manipulate others, to come out on top at all costs. So it was okay if Lena didn’t believe her right now. She would show her if the woman allowed her.

Kara decides to let the conversation die off there. It wasn’t her intention to get emotionally heavy, however she needed Lena to comprehend exactly what she meant to her. This was no marriage of convenience.

Lena’s eyes roam over the cars ahead of them. Her gaze never stays fixated on one car for long before moving elsewhere. The tension in the car is unsettling. “Thanks for answering my questions.”

They sit in silence, not comfortable but not exactly tense. They merely exist, peering at each other when the other isn’t looking.

The traffic eventually clears enough for them to move. They pass the wreck with several of the cars pulled off to the side as officers direct traffic. Lena and Kara wince when they see some of the burning wreckage still being put out by firefighters.

The silence is broken by the ringing of Kara’s phone. She glances at the dash, sighing when she sees Alex’s name. She notices Lena squirm, but there is no helping the awkwardness of their situation. She has to answer. “Hello?”

“Kara, it’s Oona.”

Her senses are immediately on alert. “What’s wrong? Is she okay? What can I do? Do I need to come over?” Her mind races with one possibility after the next, and she needs her sister to answer her.

“She won’t stop crying. She said she wanted to watch a movie, I thought it would be fine, but then she started sobbing. She refuses to let me near her. She screamed when I tried touching her.”

“Damnit,” she swears. She knows what movie Oona picked. “ _Coco?”_

“How did you know?”

“I had to take it away from her. It’s uh-“ her eyes flash quickly to Lena before moving back to the road. “It’s a _thing_.” Thing is code for something Oona did with her mom. “She is watching it in French, right?”

Lena and their kids each had their own thing. For Oona, Lena taught her French. The others could speak it, but they weren’t as interested in the language as Oona. Oona and Lena watched movies in French instead of English, especially Disney films. Oona claimed the lyrics were more meaningful and beautiful in French. It was their special thing. She would leave notes for her mom, signing them with a lyric from one of their favorite songs.

 _Coco_ was her favorite movie. She and Lena watched it together frequently. Lena would sing _Remember Me_ to Oona the night before she would leave on a business trip. It was their thing. Any time she heard the song in the last six months, the little girl burst into tears. She didn’t want to forget her mom like Coco was forgetting her dad. She was upset when she struggled to remember the sound of Lena’s voice three weeks ago, which was how she ended up in her mother’s bed. She would use everything in her arsenal to find a reason to climb into bed with Kara. Kara let her, wanting to keep her kiddos close. They were all she had left of Lena.

Disney movies were currently banned in their household. All of the kids managed to get themselves worked up as too many characters had dead parents. Eilís wouldn’t even look at the cover of _Frozen 2_ without dissolving into tears. Orla stopped watching every single princess movie and _Finding Nemo_. She fell apart during a screening of _Finding Dory_ when she began to fully understand what it meant for Dory to lose her parents in such a traumatic fashion. Liam used to love _Tarzan_. He would go around without a shirt on, swinging from the furniture and the banister, acting out the part. Lena used to sing _You’ll Be In My Heart_ and called him her little Tarzan. He would cry himself to sleep, mumbling the lyrics every night.

It was sort of the last straw for Kara, the catalyst for the family of five fleeing the city. Their house was suffocating and Lena’s memory haunted them all. They were barely living. The kids slept at odd hours, crowded in her bed, refusing to go in their rooms at night, and they were all in pain. They needed somewhere new where the memories wouldn’t follow them everywhere they went.

“I-we,” she corrects. The return of Lena to her life is something she won’t ever stop thinking is a dream. She isn’t usually this lucky. “We will be there in twenty.” It is a detour from their house, but she can’t leave her daughter to suffer when Lena’s presence alone would work miracles. She ends the calls. “Are you okay with that?”

She hadn’t asked Lena how she felt about any of this. Children aren’t something Lena had any experience with before they had them. She worried endlessly during the seven months with the twins about her role as a mother, but she was amazing from the moment the pregnancy was confirmed. She talked to the babies all the time, wanting to familiarize them with her voice. She endured Kara’s endless, voracious appetite for food and for Lena. She supported Kara during the forty hour labor. The twins were premature and unbelievably tiny. When Lena wasn’t with her, she was with them. She often fell asleep at their incubators, too tired and terrified to leave them.

“Is _thing_ something that includes me?” Lena lifts one of her brows.

“Yes,” she replies, shifting lanes to make the next right turn. Alex lives in the suburbs. She has to stop herself from laughing every time she thinks of her sister, the badass living in the suburbs with her wife and kids. Instead of riding on her motorcycle, she drives a nice SUV for carpools and soccer runs. Her motorcycle is mostly untouched in her garage, but sees some action on occasion. “You haven’t seen it yet even though it was over two years old in 2020, but it’s your thing with Oona. There’s a song in the movie that you would sing to her whenever you were going away, except you would sing the French version. The two of you would say it’s deeper or whatever,” she rolls her eyes playfully.

She isn’t bothered by them having something just for them. She loves how Lena sets aside time for their family and dedicates time to make each of their kids feel special instead of pitting them against one another.

Lena startles beside her. “I sing to her?” Lena rarely sings. She has vague memories before living with the Luthors of her mother singing to her, but she thinks she mostly made them up to contrast with the coldness of the Luthor family.

“You sing to all of them. You have a special song for each of them. You always left the office at five to be home for dinner at six, and bedtime routines started around seven thirty.” She hasn’t been on top of adhering to a specific schedule in the last six months. She pulled the kids out of school two weeks after the plane crash when she discovered they had been skipping. They finished their work by correspondence.

“You said you wanted them to feel the love you didn’t have growing up and never doubt their parents loved them.” Kara pauses, chewing her lip to prevent herself from traversing into emotional territory. They’ve mostly focused on Kara, and she doesn’t want to put Lena on the spot.

“Say it.”

“What?”

“You’re holding back.”

“How do you know?”

She smiles sadly. “Look I may have stopped thinking of you as my best friend, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know you. We spent countless nights together, ate our way across the city, and while we didn’t share everything there is to know, I can recognize when you’re holding back.”

Kara sighs. “You sing to them… because you said your mom used to sing to you, not Lillian.” She clarifies. Talking about her birth mother makes Lena uncomfortable. There are a lot of unknowns about the woman who raised her for the first four years of her life.

“Oh.” Is all she says.

“There’s one song you sing for all of them, _Lullabye=“_

 _“_ By Billy Joel.” She is quiet, thinking. “My mom sang it to me. It’s the one thing I do remember about her. It was her favorite song.”

“I know.”

“I suppose you would.”

Lena closes herself off after that, which is just as well. Kara is struggling to find a balance. She doesn’t know how to act with Lena. They’re barely friends in Lena’s mind, while Kara has concrete memories of them as something much more. She wants to touch her, just hold her and promise everything will be alright, hear Lena call her ‘darling’. She has to keep her distance though, to keep Lena from running and never coming back. Lena doesn’t feel tied to the vows they made or the children they have. She could leave and Kara can’t make her stay if it isn’t what she wants.

* * *

Lena watches the city float past them as Kara takes them out of the greater metropolitan area. The buildings get smaller until houses pop up, and she realizes they are in the suburbs.

She hadn’t given much thought to where Alex lives, nor had she considered the changes ten years brought to her life. Were she and Kelly still together? Did she have kids? Lena glances at Kara, wondering how she would feel if she asked. Kara has been open and honest with her, and she doesn’t want to push her luck.

Their exchange is one sided, and she is somewhat leery of it expanding to something reciprocal. She doesn’t know how to do that with the other woman anymore. Instead, she clasps her hands in her lap, choosing to watch the changing landscape. They pass through a few different neighborhoods before Kara turns. The houses are bigger and remind Lena of Sam’s old house in the city before relocating to Metropolis.

Kara pulls into a driveway of a two story stucco [_Tuscan style_](https://www.homestratosphere.com/tuscan-decor-style-guide/) home with tile roofing. “Your sister lives here?” She can’t keep the incredulity out of her tone as she stares up at the house.

“Alex wanted a home and her wife did too,” she shrugs as she turns off the car. “Are you coming?” She nods her head to the house.

Lena shakes her head. “Yes, um yeah if that’s okay.”

“It beats sitting out here. Come on.” Lena trails behind Kara as they walk up the stone tile pathway. There are some potted plants on the stairs, and Lena knows Alex can’t be the one responsible for it.

She wipes her sweaty palms on her jeans. Kara takes out her keys, sliding one into the lock, and then opens the door. Lena slides inside as she shuts the door, taking in the decor and interior of the house. The interior is less ornate than the exterior, but no less impressive. The colors are earth tones, using natural materials like wood and iron. The flooring is bare, no carpet in sight. There are a few rugs to dress it up, but overall Lena appreciates the simplicity.

Before Lena can move further into the house, she hears something. Kara must hear it too as she’s already rushing through the house. Lena follows at a much more sedate pace, unsure if her presence is really necessary. She enters the family room and freezes when her eyes land on Oona, Oona who just yesterday seemed like a really nice kid, who slept tucked close to her, who looked at Lena like she was her world, Oona who has her knees tucked close and is rocking as she sobs.

Alex stands behind her, arms crossed as she watches her sister approach the little girl. She turns giving Lena the chance to appraise her. Her hair brushes her shoulders, no longer partially shaved, and she’s dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans.

“Oona?” Kara calls timidly as she slowly walks into Oona’s space. She kneels before the girl, keeping her distance. “Honey?” Oona’s cries increase and Kara shimmies away.

Lena feels useless and responsible at the same time for what’s happening. “It isn’t your fault.” She startles at the sound of Alex’s voice as she sidles up next to her. “I know that look and you’re probably blaming yourself. It is what it is.”

That doesn’t absolve her of the guilt sitting heavy in her stomach. Oona is upset about her return, about Lena’s missing memories, and the last six months of her life without her mom. Lena knows what it is to miss your mom and wish every night she would come back. “Even if it isn’t, it still feels like it is.”

“That’s what happens when you’re a parent. Whenever your child is upset, you want to do anything in your power to take it away.”

Lena doesn’t believe that’s what this is. She hardly knows the kids. She isn’t a parent. She’s just… just… confused. She doesn’t really know anything.

Lena hasn’t been alone with Alex in a long time, and it is unnerving for her. There is no animosity coming from her, or scathing looks when she thinks Lena isn’t looking. “Kara told me about the amnesia. That sucks. I know you feel like you’ve been dropped into a life that isn’t yours, but it is Lena. You worked incredibly hard to make it yours. I- well if I’m being blunt, I didn’t approve in the beginning of your relationship with my sister.” That is perhaps the least shocking thing Alex has ever said to her. “For a long time, I was the one she confided everything to and then you came along. You didn’t edge me out completely, at least not about…” Lena nods, not wanting to discuss the elephant in the room again. “But then you guys started mending fences and were announcing you eloped, and it really hit me that while she will always be my sister, i wasn’t the first person she would go to anymore. I’m telling you all of this because you confided in me back then that you were terrified of screwing it all up.”

There isn’t a relationship Lena hasn’t screwed up in some way or another. “How does that relate to now?”

“You might not be where you were and you’re angry about things that for us happened a long time ago, but for you they are fresh like today’s news. I just don’t want you to run because you think it’ll be easier for you. You told me when the twins were born you understood what compelled the El family to send their children to earth. You said your family was your greatest achievement. You could lose your company, technically had at one point, but none of that would match the destruction of your heart if you lost your family. That was not me paraphrasing either.”

Confusion swirls in her brain as she tries to piece together what Alex is saying. She and Alex were friends, not close, but she trusted her enough at any rate. She supposes they are family as she is married to Kara. In some ways, she had identified with the older Danvers more, they had a much more jaded outlook on life in comparison to Kara. And the two of them always believed in Kara/Supergirl even if they hadn’t necessarily agreed with her.

“I thought you would warn me away from hurting your family.”

Alex’s face softens as she regards her. It is disconcerting and sets her on edge. She isn’t accustomed to it from Alex. Alex has been mostly consistent in her treatment. Part of her always distrusted Lena, primarily because of her family and somewhat because of her own actions. “You’re my family too. You don’t remember everything from the last decade. We’ve had our moments Luthor. Besides my wife would totally kick my ass if I tried to give you a version of the shovel talk.”

Lena furrows her brow. “Why would your wife care?”

“Did Kara not tell you?” Lena’s eyes flick to where Kara sits with a foot between her and Oona. Oona’s cries have petered off, but she hasn’t moved an inch. “Sam and I got married about eight years ago.”

“Oh,” her eyes widen. The word seems to be her catchphrase today. “Um wow, yeah congrats, and no she didn’t mention it. To be honest, I haven’t really asked for updates on anyone’s lives. I’ve been trying to figure out my own.”

“Right,” she nods, grinning. “We have two kids besides Ruby. Ruby is in grad school at the moment. We adopted. Our son is eight and our daughter is five.”

Lena shakes her head, disbelief clouding her face. Kara hadn’t mentioned any of this. “Where are they?”

“At school,” Alex snorts. “Where your kids haven’t been in months.”

She blinks a few times as Alex’s words hit her. “Wait… what?”

“They’re currently homeschooled. They started skipping school after you disappeared. She pulled them out and they fled the city like bats out of hell. Kara hadn’t been back to your house since late May. I didn’t know she had gone until my mom called me two days later to say she was there.”

“Where are the other kids then?” She had thought it strange Oona was the only one who popped up in her hospital room.

“In Midvale, she bought a house, and only comes into the city twice a month to manage her employees.”

There was too much in her sentence for her to dissect at this moment. She has too many questions, and they are for the other Danvers. She doesn’t want Alex to think she is interrogating her.

“They aren’t exactly the most cooperative. Apparently, they’ve been using their adorable faces to convince our mom to not make them do their schoolwork. They’ve gotten away with murder. It was easy for her to say no to Kara and I, but a flash of a smile or a simple pout, and she bends over backwards for them.”

“Reminds me of Kara,” she comments, her gaze shifting back to the blonde. Oona has removed her head from her legs. “She did the same thing.”

Alex snickers with a shake of her head. “Oh Lena, you’re forgetting I know better now. You don’t cave for just anyone.”

Lena begrudgingly nods her head with a roll of her eyes. She did have other reasons for giving into Kara. It wasn’t for purely altruistic reasons. “Whatever,” she mumbles, turning away from Alex.

“I’ve got to go season the meat, why don’t you go and help. It might benefit you. You can’t avoid them forever.” With a point raise of her brow, she nudges Lena over to Kara and Oona. She hesitantly approaches, shoulders tense as she nears them. Kara beams up at her and waves her over.

“See, she’s right here.”

“Not the same,” Oona sniffles, wiping her nose on her hoodie. Lena makes a face. “She doesn’t remember me.”

“We can make new memories. Yeah our old ones are precious, and we should hold onto them. However, your mom is back with us, and we shouldn’t take that for granted.”

Oona’s lips thin as her eyes flicker between Lena and Kara. Lena wipes her palms. “I know I haven’t been… good at any of this so far. I don’t know much about kids. It’s confusing for me, and I’m sure it is confusing for you.” Oona narrows her eyes. “I can’t say I’ll be good at any of this. I’m willing to try… if you are.” Lena feels something shift in her as Oona launches her body into her. Her arms are tight around her neck and she presses her tiny face into Lena’s shoulder. Lena tentatively wraps her arms around her small frame, stroking her back. Oona pulls back with a tear stained face, wiping away the evidence of her crying. Lena has to grimace.

“Did your Aunt Alex take you to the house?” Kara asks, running her fingers through tangled waves.

“Yeah, I was wearing my clothes from yesterday. I had to try on a lot of pants though ‘cause almost none of them fitted no more.”

Kara shakes her head when she sees Lena open her mouth. She mouths ‘later’.

“Well we’ve got to stop by the house to pick up some clothes for your mom, and then we will be driving back to Midvale.”

“Eilís was asking why I came home. I didn’t say anything. I promise.” The earnestness on her face and in her voice made Lena’s heart melt. It reminded her of herself when she did everything within her power to make Lillian love her.

“Good. Your siblings are at nana’s house and I’ll drop you and your mom off at our house before going to talk to them.” Kara taps Oona’s nose, eliciting a smile from the girl.

“We better get out of here before your cousins come home, or we won’t be leaving for a while yet.” She looks directly at Lena.

“Right,” Oona shifts off her lap and stands up. Lena pushes herself off the floor.

“Too late,” Kara sighs as the front door opens, young voices ring out.

“Auntie Kara!!!!”

“You jinxed yourself jeju,” Oona teases her mother. “

Two children race into the family room, stopping short when they register Lena’s presence. Their faces turn white and they run away screaming. Oona cackles, bent over as she tries to catch her breath before she breaks off into another round.

“Why are they screaming?” Sam pops her head into the living room, chuckling. “Oh yeah, they think you’re a ghost. We were going to tell them about it later. When will you stop scaring children with your face Luthor?”

“I’ve had no complaints about my looks Arias.” She sniffs.

Sam’s face breaks into the largest grin, almost equal to Kara’s. “It’s so good to see you.” She throws her arms around her, and Lena sinks into her embrace. She releases the breath that she feels she has been holding since she first woke up in this strange world. Sam rubs her back and leads her over to the couch when she notices Kara and Oona have disappeared. Sam waves off her concerns. “They’re probably giving us some privacy and going to find the munchkins.”

“I didn’t mean to scare them.”

“Eh, it happens. They’ll live. You didn’t know they would react like that, and Alex hadn’t warned me you would be here. But enough about all of that, how are you?” Lena searches her face and finds nothing but concern for herself in her brown eyes.

She exhales loudly, her shoulders falling. Tears pool at the corner of her eyes, blurring her vision.

“Aw honey,” Sam pulls her close, allowing Lena to lay her head on her shoulder. “Let it out. It’s okay. You don’t have to hold it all in.”

Lena chokes back a sob as everything comes tumbling out of her. She doesn’t know what is wrong with her, but she can’t stop crying now that she’s opened the gates. Everything hits her all at once, so much so, there are too many reasons for her to be crying. Sam pats her back, rubbing soothing circles, and supplying an endless stream of comforting words.

“I’m sorry,” she sniffles, pulling away.

Sam shrugs. “Crying isn’t a crime. There’s a lot happening in your head and anyone would lose it if they had gone through even half of the shit you have. You don’t have to apologize to me.” She hands Lena a box of tissues with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure it is all very confusing for you.”

“It feels like I went to sleep and then my whole world changed overnight.”

“Well it wasn’t overnight. I can tell you that much. You actually almost screwed everything up overnight.”

“Kara said something about that.”

“Probably too kind to go into the real details.”

“I don’t know. She laid into me when I picked a fight in my doctor’s office.”

Sam snickers. “Oh grow up,” Lena rolls her eyes.

“I would say she’s a fair mix of the two sides of her. She is better at balancing it, but that’s for her to tell you not me. But back to you, I would advise when you get back to the city next week to go see your therapist.”

Lena has been in and out of therapy her whole life. “Do I trust them?” She had an inherent distrust of people after her mother used to pay off her therapists to find out what Lena said in her sessions. She used Lena’s own words against her, cutting deep where she knew Lena hurt.

“Yes, you personally vetted them. They signed a NDA. You’ve been seeing her for nearly ten years. it’s more of an every couple of months thing now as opposed to bi-weekly.”

“Huh.”

“You said it helped with your shifting perception of yourself and to embrace a relationship with Kara.”

“She said I ghosted her.”

“Oh you did, hard, you blocked her number, went out of your way to avoid her, and then got all upset when you found out she left the city.”

Lena looks away at Sam’s pointed look.

“You didn’t know how to not be her friend but something more and the last year was confusing for you. You swung between a lot of different feelings for her.”

Lena lowers her gaze to her lap as she considers the ride she has been on. Some days she convinced herself she wasn’t mad, while others she seethed in her anger. Then there were the rare ones where she straddled the border between forgiveness and condemnation. The antipathy she holds in her heart scares her. She doesn’t want to cross into insanity like her relatives. It is her greatest fear to turn into someone like Lex who allowed his emotions, his hatred, and his fear to cloud his judgment resulting in the deaths of too many innocent people. To him, the ends justified the means. He had a single obsession and allowed it to take over his life until it drove him over the edge.

She swallows, sinking into the cushions. “I almost threw a bottle at her. It was right after I found out. There was a game night. I brought the booze.” She walked into the room with everyone aside from James gathered. All of their smiles and cheery greetings made her grind her teeth. She hated the fakery of it all. She knew the lies that rested beneath the surface, saw each of them for who they really were, and arrived at the conclusion she meant nothing to any of them. For one second, she contemplated launching the bottle, entertaining how good it would feel to see their reactions before reigning in that darker part of herself. She couldn’t afford to play her hand, instead she chose to bide her time. She plastered on a fake smile, returning their greetings, all the while planning her next steps. “I- for one moment I really thought I would throw it. I didn’t, but I wanted to.”

“People want to do a lot of things. It doesn’t mean they do it. Having dark impulses makes you human not a monster. Everyone thinks something like that at some point. It’s what we do with those impulses that decides who we are. Oh also sort of on a related note, your therapist helped you stop using alcohol as a crutch. No offense Lena, but I’m honestly impressed you haven’t needed a liver transplant.”

“Fuck you,” she laughs.

“Language!” Sam scolds, shoving her to the side. “You better not talk like that with your kids around. You’ll go broke around those con artists you call children. They’ll swindle your money from you faster than you can blink.”

“I think Kara had to pay up just yesterday. What the hell is this halfsies business?”

“Intent is everything. Even if you course correct halfway through, you were originally going to swear, so you pay for half of it. A swear is usually five dollars. After your kids said fuck at our wedding, you knew the only way to deter yourself from swearing the way you do was to start a swear jar.”

“How old were they?”

“It was their first word. Alex thinks it’s funny, especially as it was said during the now or forever hold your peace bit. It was caught on camera. She sent a copy to you guys.”

“Oh god,” she groans. “Was I humiliated?” She could imagine some of the judgment directed at them from other guests.

“You sunk into your seat while Kara glared at you during the reception. She was pissed. She had to put in their baby books their first word was,” Sam giggles at the memory. “Fuck. They are definitely your children.”

“Am I happy?”

Sam cups her face with a soft smile. “Unbelievably. Sometimes I can barely fathom how you’re the same Lena. You smile nearly all the time unless you’re in the boardroom.”

“I looked at my camera roll. It is hard to recognize her… me. She is just so happy.”

“That’s what love does to a person. You were used to cutting people from your life. You never really let people in, and as soon as someone disappointed you, you used that as justification for choosing to walk through life alone.”

“You’re the second person to say that to me today.”

“Maybe you should consider why.” Lena wrinkles her nose when the smell of something burning reaches her nostrils. “Oh fuck, I told her I would cook the meat. Alex, honey,” she disappears into the kitchen. She can hear their playful arguing in the kitchen, and Alex promising she can do it. Lena has her doubts about her capabilities in the kitchen.

Kara returns with three children in tow. She focuses on the two she doesn’t know. The boy has dirty blonde hair and chocolate brown eyes. He stands almost as tall as his cousin. His build is wiry, but she could picture where he would fill out as he got older. His sister holds herself up with a touch of defiance. She has short dark hair and dark blue eyes. They sort of remind Lena of the ocean when it storms. She is a lot smaller than both her brother and Oona.

“Lena this is Jeremiah and this is Emilia.”

“Millie,” the girl corrects her aunt.

“Sorry Millie,” an amused smile teases her lips. “Guys, are you going to say hello to your Aunt Lena?” She prods them.

“You’re not a ghost, are you?” Jeremiah asks, tilting his head as he peers at her.

“No, definitely alive.”

He releases a whooshing sound, his shoulders sagging as if the weight of the world has been lifted. “Oh good, I was worried we were going to have to do an exorcism.”

Kara hides her laughter behind the palm of her hand.

“See I told you she isn’t a ghost. She’s just got scrambled eggs brains.”

“Her brain is made of scrambled eggs?” Millie asks her cousin with wife eyes.

“No stupid, it’s an _expression.”_

 _“_ Hey!” Lena is shocked to find the reprimand came from her. It seemed natural. “We don’t call people stupid. She asked a question. There are no stupid questions.”

“Sorry,” Oona apologizes with a roll of her eyes. Lena narrows her own at the direct challenge to her authority. Maybe Oona isn’t as sweet as she initially thought.

“Okay well as much fun as this reunion has been, we have to get on the road.” Kara scoops the children into her arms causing them to squeal as she lifts them with ease. She dramatically kisses their cheeks, making a whole production out of it before setting them back down. Oona hugs them, and then they come to Lena.

She awkwardly hugs them, grinning at their warm hugs. They call out their goodbyes to Sam and Alex in the kitchen as they head out. Kara and Oona are a bit ahead of her when Sam yells her name. She gestures for her to come closer as she waves bye to Kara and Oona from the stairs. “Yes?”

“Don’t take yourself out before trying. I know every inch of you wants to flee for parts unknown and pretend this is some elaborate dream concocted by your asshole brother, but this is your life. You worked hard to earn and keep it. I know you don’t believe you deserve to have it after everything. Take the time to talk with Kara, listen to what she has to say and talk through things before deciding what to do next. Your company is waiting whenever you want to return, but you have time to figure everything out. Those kids are your world and it would be a disservice for you to throw it all away.” She hugs her. “And stop pretending you hate her when you know the real reason is you’re in love. You don’t hurt this much without an underlying cause.” She whispers, kissing her cheek. “Think about it.”

Lena hates her for being right. As she glances over at Kara in the driver's seat conversing with Oona in the backseat, something flutters in her chest. She looks back at Sam who smirks at her with a fond shake of her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out on [ _tumblr_ ](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)  
> Let me know what you think!  
> We will be meeting the rest of the kids in the next chapter.  
> I also made a playlist on [ _Spotify_ ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3IZ50wnqcvXgGN4H7ndiy8?si=wqkAe1iGRgChapUkplBxOw)  
> 


	8. your touch, your touch is everything now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't supposed to be this long. I don't know what happened. I really hate myself for how long this is. Also unintentional was how fluffy it came out.  
> Thank you for all of your responses. I love reading all of your comments.

Kara suppresses a sigh when they are about an hour outside of the city limits. Oona connected Kara’s headphones to her watch to play her music, leaving her mothers in silence up front. The brief visit to their row home left Lena a little vulnerable and raw, at least in Kara’s opinion. There laid before her was the evidence that ten years had indeed passed her by and this wasn’t some elaborate hoax. Kara observed her closely as she navigated her new surroundings, exploring the open spaces before venturing into more personal territory. They were there for a purpose that they couldn’t put off if they wanted to arrive in Midvale before it was too late in the evening to collect the other children.

_Eventually, she led her upstairs, remaining silent as Lena trailed cautiously behind her. She glanced back once, catching Lena as she took a few deep breaths and avoiding looking too closely at the walls lined with photos._

_She hesitated when she reached their door. It wasn’t like the other day when she returned alone, terrified Lena wouldn’t wake. Lena was with her, just not the Lena she imagined when she received the news. Amnesia wasn’t one of the possibilities floating through her head when Alex called over a week ago. It was the farthest thing from her mind._

_She twisted the knob, pushing open the door to reveal their room. She walked ahead taking a seat on the bed as Lena poked her head in, taking in the shared space with fresh eyes. It was evident two people lived in the room, were at their most intimate. “It’s cozy.” Kara hadn’t known what to expect from her, so she laughed hollowly, to deflect attention from the raging storm in her mind._

_Lena wasn’t used to sharing and she definitely wasn’t someone who took the time to carefully decorate her home, choosing to reside in a desolate penthouse without a single expression of her inner self. Her reaction was in line with Lena’s current mindset, the one that never had a real home, made no attempt to create one either._

_When they moved in together, combining two separate households, they decided to create a home, one filled with light and laughter. The apartment they shared wasn’t their forever home, they knew that, but it didn’t stop them from meshing their different personalities. Kara and Lena argued about how to decorate, what to hang up, how to create a welcoming home, in the end their apartment reflected them perfectly. Kara knew the Luthors definitely weren’t the casual picture taking type of family, unlike the Danvers. Pictures of Alex and Kara growing up were everywhere in their childhood home and it was the same in the Danvers-Luthor home._

_They struck a balance until the twins were born and they officially moved into their house. All bets were off. Lena was intent on documenting every second of their children’s lives to the point it became excessive, refusing to miss anything until she thoroughly annoyed her wife. Kara had to interfere, limiting her to a few pictures a day. Lena saw reason when Kara pointed out she had to increase her cloud space for all the photos she was taking and there was a problem if she needed over a 100 GB to store everything._

_Looking around their bedroom, there was plenty of evidence of Lena’s skills with a camera. On top of the dresser were pictures of each of the kids first days of school. Staring at them, it was almost impossible to believe the children were ever that small with their teeny tiny uniforms, perfectly coifed hair, and their smiles full of pearly white baby teeth._

_Lena picked up the frame, her forehead wrinkling as her eyes raked hungrily over the faces of their children. “I always wanted kids.” She turned to Kara with downturned lips. “After everything with Lex, I resolved not to bring anyone else into my messed up family. It seemed like a cruel fate to force onto an innocent.” Kara opened her mouth, shutting it instantly upon discovering she had no words. Lena didn’t want words of comfort. Lena plowed ahead. “They look happy.”_

_“They are,” she kept her voice soft and pitched low. She tried not to come on too strong, which wasn’t one of her strengths. “Maybe not the last six months, but their lives aren’t miserable. They’ve known they were loved from the start. I- well actually I can’t imagine what you think, I would never be that presumptuous. However, I don’t want you to go around thinking they are better off without you. You may not be the mom they lost, but you have so much to offer Lena. It’s been inside of you all along. Not remembering that you love them doesn’t equate to an inability to love them. ”_

_Lena hummed thoughtfully with Kara deciding to drop it for the time being instead choosing to give her a mini tour._

_Kara showed Lena which dresser was hers and gestured to her side of the closet with a mention of where she could find a bag to pack her things in, pressing forward habitually, closing the distance between them, moving in before it had fully registered to her what she was doing._

_She leaned in, carefully tipping Lena’s head up with a feather light touch, her fingertips caressing the skin under Lena’s eyes. Her blue-green gaze tracked the movement before meeting Kara’s deep blues, the air crackled between them as Lena’s eyes dropped to Kara’s much abused lip. Lena tilted her head up, her breath catching as Kara dipped hers, self-doubt plaguing her for a moment before she mutters ‘screw it’ and presses her lips to Lena’s, claiming her mouth with a swipe of her tongue._

_Lena’s breath mingled with Kara’s as teeth and tongues collided, the kiss quickly transitioning from something innocent, full of longing to something hot and rough. Kara wrapped her hands around Lena’s hips, pulling her into her body as Lena slid her hands into Kara’s hair, moaning as Kara pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. A wild flush spread across her body as Lena’s fingers tightened in her hair and suddenly she can’t get enough. Her skin was on fire, to soothe the blaze she tried pull away, finding all of the oxygen sucked from her lungs._

_Lena chased her lips, capturing them like they’re a flag in a game of flag football, and Kara needed… she needed… her thoughts were overwhelming as she tried to clear out the haze. They were supposed to be doing something, but all she can focus on is Lena, the swell of her breasts, the soft curves of her hips, the thigh pressing in her most sensitive area. “Oh,” she groaned, wrenching her mouth away as her lungs struggled for air._

_Horror dawned in her eyes when it finally hits her like a mac truck the boundary they crossed. She wasn’t opposed to kissing Lena in any world except in this one Lena wasn’t at full mental capacity. She was in a vulnerable state with her emotional state in a flurry and compromised._

_The atmosphere in the bedroom was oppressive with Lena staring at her with increasing panic in her eyes. Lena might have thought she had mastered the art of a neutral face, but she failed to realize her eyes betrayed her every time. It was better for them all around if she left Lena to her own devices and made herself scarce as she tried to process how everything got out of control. None of that was supposed to happen._

_“Um,” she squeaked, eyes flitting downward, and her skin flushing hotly at the reminder of Lena’s thigh pressed between her legs._

_Lena lowered her leg, stepping back. Kara had never seen her so lost or contemplative since she had known her. Guilt pricked at her consciousness, swirling dangerously in her stomach as nausea swept over her. She had to get away from Lena before she did something else stupid._

_Space wasn’t a concept she excelled in, at least when it came to giving the people in her life the space they desired. She was naturally affectionate, though oblivious in the early stages of her friendship the sort of intimacy she cultivated in her relationship with Lena and how unnatural it was with someone she called her best friend. There were hugs and cuddling, and then there was what she did with Lena. They had breached a level of closeness that was unlike anything she had with the other people in her life. She certainly never had the kinds of thoughts that passed through her head featuring Lena about Nia or even the men she claimed to love._

_It forced her to rethink all of her interactions, every touch and hug, all of the lingering looks and secret glances, and the sizzling tension when they were in a disagreement._

_Instead of staying on the third floor with Lena a few feet away, Kara went in search of her daughter to avoid another problem she created, finding Oona in her bedroom on the second floor of the house. “What are you doing kiddo?” She leaned against the doorway, smiling as Oona sorted through her belongings she hadn’t bothered to put away._

_The untidy space was a sight for sore eyes. Kara was as lost as the kids in the aftermath, never quite capable of amassing the energy required to order the kids around. They had slipped in the up-keeping of their rooms and the house in general. Given she wasn’t the cleanliest around, she hadn’t felt the need to enforce them to do the same. Lena was the one who kept them from leaving the house a wreck and had a wheel for chores. Every Saturday without fail, she ushered them out of bed, ordering them around gleefully as they grumbled unhappily. Without her, none of them had the motivation to try. So they didn’t._

_Oona’s room was a great big disaster with clothes flung all over the floor, shoes strewn about every which way, toys left out to be stepped on, and none of the kids had made their beds before they departed their house one night and never came back. The house was left frozen much like its’ occupants who put their lives on hold._

_“Cleaning up a little,” she explained with a casual lift of her shoulder, carefully folding a pair of jeans._

_“We will have to go through some of this stuff when we come back next week. You kids have grown so much in six months, and I think we got some of this when you started school last year.” They had brought so little with them when they moved, Kara choosing instead to purchase whatever they needed as they went. It was too much of a hassle to pack when she was seeking to escape, to leave behind everything. The kids snatched up what was important and didn’t care for what was left behind._

_“So we are coming back?” Oona asked, a hint of condemnation in her voice._

_Kara faltered before finding her words. “Yes, I’ve already contacted the headmaster at your school, and the four you will be back in school the week after next. I ordered new uniforms. All of you have grown quite a bit since the end of last year. We will take care of getting supplies when we get back.”_

_“No more hiding?” Kara shook her head, the familiar swirl of guilt fluttered in her belly. Quitting her life involved dragging her kids into it when they had already suffered enough with the loss of their mother. “Can we go shopping for new clothes too?”_

_“Yes,” Kara laughed, deciding to help Oona clear some of her mess, thankful for the swift change of focus. “We will also see about replacing your shoes. I think your feet are the size of Big Foot’s now.” She tickled the bottom of Oona’s sole, coaxing a tiny laugh from the girl. “Are you okay with going back to school?”_

_Orla was the one most vocal about returning to school, despising every minute she had to sit in front of a computer to complete a day’s worth of work, complaining endlessly about the lack of stimulation for her mind. She said it sucked all the fun out of learning and she’d rather spend hours in a classroom where Johnny Meyers picked his nose for thirty minutes than stare at a screen for half a day._

_She missed all the benefits of school like socializing with her friends, going to activities, and most importantly the time away from her brother and sisters. Kara sympathized with her plight, remembering the rush of happiness she experienced when Alex went off to college. She missed her sister while she was gone, but she didn’t miss her overprotectiveness._

_Oona halted her movements, lifting her mix matched gaze to her mother’s. “Back in the spring, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I didn’t want to be there. All of my friends were being weird and Ms. Leontief kept giving me these looks. It was the last place I wanted to be when I was sad. Mama wasn’t there to pick us up on Mondays and Wednesdays. We didn’t get to go out for ice cream anymore. Going about our day hurt the most. Sometimes I would wake up and forget she was gone and have to remember all over again.” Hot tears trailed down her face, Oona not making a move to brush them away as she fell apart._

_Kara hadn’t known how deeply it affected any of the kids with their refusal to address the situation. They talked about Lena on occasion, none of them knew how to express in words what was happening in their heads. She would touch base with each of them when she tucked them in at night, but she also gave them the space to process everything on their own. She didn’t want them to feel as if she was suffocating them. Any time she attempted bringing up her wife, the kids would shut down. They didn’t want to mention her at all. Kara had experience with the feeling._

_“Oh little one,” her lips turned down as she tried to find the right words to soothe her daughter. Platitudes wouldn’t work now that Oona was older. She wasn’t little where words, kisses, or hugs could solve all of her problems._

_“I felt guilty for having fun. I didn’t know that’s what it was until I asked Aunt Alex.” Kara figured out why she might not have approached her mother. Kara was carrying around her own guilt. She had blown out her powers the day before, assisting with rescue efforts after a tsunami left a lot of destruction and missing people in its’ wake. She had gone over all the maybes, torturing herself with the what ifs after she received the news. “There was this pressure in my chest whenever I was laughing or smiling, or doing something she would love. I kept thinking she should be there too.”_

_Kara remembered the feeling from when she first landed on earth and the return of it after the plane crashed in April. “Ahh,” she lifted herself onto the bed, sliding over to her daughter. “I felt that when I started enjoying my time with my adoptive family. I would feel terrible when I climbed into bed at night and it hit me, I didn’t think of my parents at all that day. I thought I was a bad daughter, selfish, if I didn’t think of them every single day. They saved my life, yet I couldn’t be bothered to remember them.”_

_“Does that ever go away?”_

_Kara twisted her lips. “Not really, it gets easier as time passes. I got my jeju back, but my ukr was lost to me again. If my parents hadn’t sent me away, I might have had extra time with him.” She tried not to dwell on it too much. As much as she wanted to believe she moved on from it, it was always with her, lurking in the back of her mind, ready to push past the fog. “The thing is none of it was my fault. I had a hard time with my survivor’s guilt. It wasn’t the same for your Uncle Clark. He was just a baby. This planet was all he had known, but me, I had friends, family, a life there before it was all taken from me in an instant. It took me a long time to understand that I couldn’t have done anything. My parents did what they thought was best, and in the end it was the right choice. I would have never been your mom or met your mom. I wouldn’t have my sister or my other mom. So as much as I would have liked to have stayed with them, it wasn’t possible with the information my parents had.”_

_Kara thought about talking to her children about what it was like for her when she first arrived, but something always held her back from going in depth. They were children. They were too young to understand the intricacies involved and she didn’t want to burden them with her problems. She told them about Krypton, about her parents, and her life. She taught them her native language, preening like a peacock when they were able to properly converse with her. She enjoyed passing on her heritage, their heritage to another generation of Els, pleased Krypton would live on in them._

_Still, she wanted to protect them from the realities of the world, maintain their innocence for a little longer. Two of her kids still firmly believed in Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Realistically it was impossible to keep the world out. She and Lena had multiple conversations over the years related to their desire to wrap their children in bubble wrap to stop the world from hurting them. They had gone through their own trials and tribulations with discoveries about their families, betrayal and secrets, and learning how to trust without doubting something bad would inevitably happen._

_It was undoubtedly harder when it was their own children they would have to send out. When it was them, it was someone else’s problem._

_“Do you wish you could see Krypton again?” Oona leaned into Kara’s side, sighing contently when her mother wrapped an arm around her. “From what you’ve said and what I’ve seen on Argo, it seems like a really cool place.”_

_Kara carded her fingers through tangled waves, smiling when her daughter winced. Oona was predictable and a touch over dramatic when it came to anyone messing with her hair. “I do. It was a beautiful place. It was my home for thirteen years, and sometimes it feels as if I made it up.”_

_“What do you miss the most?” Oona crawled into her lap, tucking her face into her mother’s chest, fingers tracing patterns on her hoodie._

_“The sunsets. Sometimes when the sun rises here, it reminds me of Krypton. Our red sun cast the sky in a red glow.”_

_“You didn’t have a blue sky?”_

_“No, it was so strange to come here and discover a blue sky and so much green. All I had known was the one I grew up with and I had never been off world. Kryptonians were forbidden from leaving the planet.”_

_“Why?”_

_“There was an incident involving the destruction of one of our moons. Unlike the moon here, we had colonized ours. A scientist was doing experiments and kaboom, it ended up killing a lot of people and he was the first to be sentenced to the Phantom Zone.” She shivered at the mention of the place where time doesn’t exist, the place that stole twenty-four years of her life from her, and was responsible for her claustrophobia._

_“Do you think mama will get her memories back?”_

_Kara tightened her hold around Oona, clenching her jaw at the reminder of why they’re there. “I don’t know little one. I hope so, but it is possible she might never get them back.” Kara didn’t want to entertain that possibility, praying for the best outcome for their whole family. She pushed the doubts away and definitely wasn’t thinking about what occurred upstairs and how it would factor into things. “If she doesn’t then we will figure out where we go from there.”_

_Oona played with the hem of Kara’s hoodie, her fingers a little clumsy as she twisted the fabric. Her mouth was pulled into a deep frown with her eyebrows drawn tightly together. “What do we do if she doesn’t?” There was real fear there and Kara had to give her a real answer._

_“We go on. We can’t force people to be someone they aren’t or to stay if they want to leave.”_

_“Why not?” Her solemn expression nearly broke Kara. The vulnerability, the rawness as she exposed herself to her mother forced Kara to recognize that her daughter was growing up, there was no more keeping the world at bay. It was already there, up a flight of stairs, and there was no running from it this time. They had to face it._

_“It isn’t fair to them. Just as we get to make our own choices, they get to make theirs.”_

_“Well that sucks.” She huffed, leaning back into her mother. “She should be with us.”_

_Kara smiled at the sentiment, her heart and soul in full agreement, but her brain was somewhere else, not in sync. “It isn’t what you want to hear, but we have to have faith. Now let’s finish up with this pigsty you call a bedroom. I shudder to think what your mom would say if she saw it.” She patted Oona’s backside, urging her to hop off her lap, so they could continue with their task._

_“It would’ve never gotten this bad. Mama is a total clean freak.” She picked up a discarded shoe, finding its’ match across the room. “If she saw this, she would stand in my door until I got up and moving. Her scary ‘mom’ look is no joke.” Lena was the tough parent. She went from spoiling them to disciplining them within seconds. She didn’t have to raise her voice, the kids new as soon as she lowered her voice, or raised one of her elegant brows that it was game over. They knew not to push her further. “We would have been in trouble tons of times.” Kara was lenient with their punishments, often letting minor stuff slide. They were going through a tough time._

_“Yeah your mom had a way of keeping us from being slobs and making sure we all stayed out of trouble.” Kara grimaced when Oona’s missing lunchbox was found with moldy whatever that was inside, wrinkling her nose, and glaring at her sheepish daughter as she tried to make herself busy. She questioned Oona for two weeks on the whereabouts of her lunchbox. The little girl shrugged, searching her room fruitlessly, suggesting she may have lost it at school._

_“Oops.”_

_It was another twenty minutes before the room appeared mostly presentable again._

_Lena stood in the doorway with a hesitant look with her hands tucked in her hoodie. Her gaze moved around the room, settling on the two figures organizing Oona’s impressive amount of books._

_She rapped on the door, startling the occupants. “Uh hi,” she shifted uncertainly. “I hope I’m not disturbing anything.”_

_“Not at all, we were cleaning Oona’s room. It’s been uh a bit of wreck, and we thought why not do a little cleaning. Are you ready?”_

_“I think so.”_

_“Great!” She said with a great deal more enthusiasm than her response warranted. “Give us a few more minutes to finish.”_

_“You can take a seat at the desk ma- Lena?” Kara froze as her gaze drifted to her daughter. Hearing Lena’s name slip past Oona’s lips was the last thing she expected._

_Kara and Lena frowned, Lena’s quickly turning into a scowl. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t mind someone addressing her by her first name. However, coming from a child carrying half of her DNA and sharing her last name, she wasn’t a fan of it. If she was to get back any semblance of normalcy or recover her memories, she had to step into the role._

_She cleared her throat. “I think I would prefer if you called me mama or mom or whatever you usually call me.” The title wasn’t a second skin yet, but she didn’t want her name to cross Oona’s lips again. Lena sounded far too casual and disrespectful, from what she gathered she wasn’t a Lillian._

_Oona bobbed her head with an easy smile. “Right, yeah okay mom. You can sit at my desk while we finish.”_

“You’re different.” Kara startles at the exclamation, surprised Lena is choosing to make conversation with her after they awkwardly navigated around each other following their kiss.

“What?”

“Logically I’m aware that ten years have passed, but it’s deeper than that. You seem,” she purses her lips. “Balanced, not like you’re straddling different sides of yourself.”

“Ahh, guess that’s what happens when you spend countless hours with a therapist.”

“Did it work for you?”

“I like to think so. I have an appointment next week.” She throws out casually to test the waters.

“Because of me?”

Kara sighs heavily. “No. Yes. It’s complicated. I wouldn’t say you’re the cause, more so the catalyst. I should’ve gone months ago. I didn’t. It helps to have a third party listen and offer advice. You weren’t the only one who tucked away their problems hoping they would go away if you didn’t talk about them.”

“Not to sound insulting-“

“Go ahead and ask,” Kara chuckles. “I won’t get offended. I’m not ashamed.”

“Why did you need therapy?”

“I didn’t know how to handle my issues in a healthy manner. From the moment I landed in my pod, I tamped down my emotions. I wanted to fit in and well… aliens who lost their whole planets that was as far from fitting in as possible. I didn’t want to be a burden to anyone.” After Jeremiah was gone, she felt as if she had ruined Alex and Eliza’s lives with her presence. Without her, the family would have never been torn apart and then she came in stealing the spotlight and forcing Jeremiah to step out of the picture. “I did everything I could to stay under the radar and blend. It was what Alex kept telling me, more like scolding me.” Lena’s brows shoot up, confusion marring her face. “Right, Alex and I fought all the time the first two, three years I lived here. Our mom made her my ‘babysitter’, which didn’t help with Alex’s intense hatred of me. It didn’t endear her to me either.”

“I can’t picture the two of you not getting along.”

“Oh trust me, we were like oil and water. Sometimes she would defend me in front of the jerks we went to school with, only to resume ignoring me seconds later. Let me tell you sharing a room and a bathroom was the worst.”

“I envied siblings that were close. There was an age gap between us from the start and by the time I was really coming up, Lex was in college. We had a very different type of sibling relationship. I admired him greatly until I didn’t.”

“You were afraid of him.”

“No- yes,” she whispers, her grip tightening on the door handle. “He wasn’t physically intimidating. He liked to play these games to test me, getting angry when I wasn’t a willing participant. He would taunt me about not being a real Luthor, how unwanted I was, how our father would never have to know what a disappointment I was. Everything with him was about strategy and control, likely the reason he taught me chess.”

“How did you survive it?”

“I built walls and created boxes. They worked well until you came along.” She admits with a wry twist of her lips. “You obliterated all of my defenses with your sunshine smile and your personality.”

“Do you-“ Kara licks her lips. She has to tell Lena about her brother, Non Nocere, and Leviathan. “I can tell you the bare facts of what happened from what you last remember.”

“I don’t know.” Lena hedges uncertainly. “Is it bad?”

“Depends on your definition.”

“I’m guessing things didn’t work out well with Lex?”

“I think it worked about as well as you expected. You were aware from the start you couldn’t fully trust him, but better the devil you know. He didn’t believe in you or your project.” She glances nervously at the backseat, deciding perhaps the conversation is one best saved for later. “Maybe we shouldn’t discuss anything too heavy.”

“Right, okay um why did you really choose journalism? It can’t be exclusively because of what I said.”

“I may have fudged that a little. I was inspired by what you told me, but I really do like reporting on the truth. We didn’t have anything like the freedom of the press or journalism in general. We weren’t allowed to question the High Council. To do so was treason and was a punishable offense.”

“Sounds a little bleak.”

Kara hadn’t thought much about the council when she was living on Krypton. It was how things were, and she accepted it like every other citizen. Who was she to question their authority? After living on earth, specifically in the U.S. she began to realize how things were far from perfect on her planet. She had idealized so much of it, at least that which she could remember. It was disheartening to discover it was a far cry from utopia.

“I guess. I was a little too young and thought everything was perfect.”

“I can understand that.” Kara knew Lena was referencing her brother. She had thought Lex was the perfect older brother until he wasn’t. Then she had to get acquainted with a very different side of him, the side containing a real monster. “Do all of the kids have powers?”

“They do and they don’t. If you’re asking if they have my full arsenal, the answer is no. The twins recently developed super speed. All of them have strength and impenetrable skin. They used their super speed and strength to carry their siblings with them to New Orleans.”

“That was the phone call you made yesterday, yes?”

“Apparently they were craving some beignets. E is very good at geography. She knew the general direction and then used road signs when they got themselves a little lost. It takes a few minutes for the tracking software in their watches to update with the satellites when they move so fast.”

“Watches?”

“You made them. They’re also on the market and a huge seller for the company, very popular with parents. You really invented them when the twins started school.” She explains. Lena needed to know where their kids were at every second. She worried herself sick over them, fearful someone might attempt something. Their kids’ watches are more advanced than the ones’ available for purchase.

“Do they have your appetite?”

“Oh yeah, they’re always hungry.”

“Our grocery bill must be insane.”

“Good thing you’re a billionaire.” Lena cracks a smile, if she can keep her distracted, they won’t have to talk about what happened. “It’s basically if my diet- would it be quadrupled or quintupled? There are five of us, so we go through a lot of food in a week.” Her wife used to joke how Kara married her for her money, so she could consume endless amounts of food. She never did quite understand how she was able to feed herself on a junior reporter’s salary or when she was an assistant. “You’re not overly fond of any of our eating habits.”

Lena turns her head to look back at Oona. “Oona?” She waves her hand in front of the girl’s face, trying to catch her attention.

She slides an earbud out, scrunching her face in apparent confusion, her gaze moving between them. “Yes?” She responds hesitantly. It was never a good thing when her mother said her name like that.

“Has your mother fed you any vegetables?”

Oona’s eyes dart quickly to Kara before moving back to Lena. She bites her lip, several expressions flicker across her face, the main one being panic. “Uh… yes?”

“Kara!” She scolds instantly, connecting the dots, and seeing through Oona’s lies.

“Traitor,” she grumbles irritably. “There’s lettuce on burgers and there are vegetables in the Chinese we order and on pizza.”

“Oh my god,” Lena mutters, glaring at the blonde. “They need a balanced diet.”

“Yeah, yeah but green stuff is gross. They agree with me.”

“They’re children. They’re predisposed to think anything good for them is disgusting. You’re an adult and should set a better example.”

“I’m not eating vegetables,” she states, making a retching sound, shuddering at the very idea of healthy food. “You can’t make me.” She says petulantly.

Lena lifts a brow, a challenging spark in her eyes. “Oh? Really?” Kara swallows at the honeyed tone. “I bet I could find a way to motivate you.”

Kara forgets to breathe. Her hands tighten on the wheel and she feels dizzy. Lena’s presence is intoxicating, a drug she cannot get enough of, but one she has to resist. They’ve already crossed a line today and she can’t afford to toe it again.

“Uh,” she gulps, avoiding looking over in the brunette’s direction for the temptation is too great. She is far too distracting for her own good. “Why don’t you focus on force feeding the kids’ vegetables?”

“EW,” Oona wrinkles her nose, leaning forward to place her head between her mother’s seats. “I’m not eating them. Mama thinks kale is delicious and that was before she had memory problems. Vegetables taste nasty and I refuse.”

“This is all your fault.” Lena accuses.

“Or maybe they’ve inherited my superior taste buds.”

“I have to disagree with that assessment. You’re palette is severely underdeveloped. You eat fried, sugary, and over-processed foods. Your diet is more like a teenager’s as opposed to someone about to turn forty.” Kara scowls at her.

This is a familiar argument that started during the early days of their friendship when Kara first insulted Lena’s eating practices. She couldn’t fathom how someone could choose to eat kale over literally anything else. It was _kale_.

“I’m hungry,” Oona pipes up from the backseat. “I want a burger.”

“Excuse me?” Kara meets her gaze in the rearview mirror, raising an eyebrow to remind her daughter that that is not how she asks for something. “Do you want to try that again?”

Oona blushes, ducking her head, embarrassed by the gentle reprimand. “Can we stop at a diner, please? I would like a burger.” Her stomach gurgles loudly.

“Much better,” Kara crows happily. “You’re in luck. There’s a great place nearby your Auntie Alex and I used to stop at when we went home.”

Twenty minutes later they sit in a quiet booth in a corner, away from prying eyes. They definitely don’t need to reveal to the entire world just yet that Lena is in fact alive. Lena shakes her head, pointedly staring at them when they order practically half the menu. The waitress doesn’t seem fazed. Lena orders a garden salad with dressing on the side.

“Ugh how do you eat rabbit food? Even our cat eats french fries.”

Kara’s gaze swivels in Oona’s direction, her eyebrows crawl up her forehead. “Wait you feed the cat fries?”

“She stole them. Orla left hers on the table and then Mally jumped up there and ate them.”

“There’s a cat?”

Their heads snap up as if they forgot Lena was there. “We got her about two months ago. They kept begging and their pouts are irresistible.”

“I know the feeling,” Lena mumbles as the waitress comes back with their beverages.

An hour later they are back on the road with Oona snoozing in the backseat. Kara had used the stop fill up on gas and buy some snacks for the road. Driving always made her hungry. It is a few hours in when they still have another hour that Lena finally decides to mention it.

“So we aren’t going to talk about it?”

Kara wondered when she would bring it up. She thought she would have more time as Lena was the type to avoid that which made her uncomfortable, at least if it involved Kara. It took her weeks before she finally confronted her, revealing her true feelings about Kara’s identity.

The blonde scrubs her face tiredly. Fatigue settles into her muscles with sun gone and the stars out in full force, shining brightly above them and the last 48 hours finally catching up to her. “Can we- look- I don’t think we are ready for that conversation. We are in a moving car and neither of us really can escape if it gets to be too much.” She would also like the opportunity to use her hands to express herself, something she can’t do if she’s driving.

* * *

Lena bites her tongue, swallowing her sharp retort as she studies Kara’s tense profile. “Fine,” she says, a touch of irritation inflected in her voice, she doesn’t bother to disguise.

It was just before eight when they pulled up to a seaside house. It was too dark to get a good look at it.

She stretches her legs, her arms lifting up, body popping after hours of being confined in a car. The smell of salt permeating the air hits her, and it reminds her of long ago childhood memories in Ireland. Waves crash against the shore in the distance, settling some of her nerves. She shivers at the slight chill in the air, hurrying after Kara and Oona who are halfway up the path.

Kara unlocks the door, beckoning her to follow. The house has the same homey feel as the townhome in National City, despite lacking many of the personal touches. Oona flicks on lights as she heads into the family room, plopping on the white sofa with blue and green accent pillows. The whole room gives her beach vibes, which was likely the intent. The coffee table has a glass panel displaying dozens and dozens of shells, likely collected at the beach just down from the house.

Kara stands a few feet away. “I would stay, but I really have to go talk to the others before bringing them back. Do you think you’ll be alright for maybe an hour?”

“If I can’t handle a single nine year old, I think we’re in trouble.”

“My number is programmed in your phone, so if you need anything, and i mean anything, please call.”

“It’ll be fine.” She ushers Kara out the front door, sighing when her headlights disappear around a bend.

Traipsing back into the living room, she frowns when she finds it empty. “Oona?” She calls out.

“In the kitchen.”

Oona stands in front of the stove top, placing the kettle down before pivoting to face Lena. “I thought I could make us some tea.”

Panic unfurls in Lena’s chest when Oona’s close proximity to the stove registers in her mind. “Maybe i should take care of it,” she suggests, gently maneuvering Oona away from the heated appliance.

The young girl laughs airily. “I know how to put the kettle on. You showed me like a million times,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“I’d rather do it,” blocking her attempts at brushing past her. Oona gives up, throws her hands in the air as she heads over to the mug rack. She grabs two, setting them down on the counter. “What kind of tea would you like? We haven’t been shopping in like two weeks, but we are usually well stocked on tea. We’ve got peppermint, chai, Earl Grey, green, um sleepy time.”

“Peppermint is fine.”

Lena pours the hot water for them. Oona slides one that looks like a gauntlet in front of her. “Enjoy your infinitea.”

“What?”

Oona’s mouth falls open at Lena’s lack of understanding. She is obviously missing something crucial. “You haven’t seen _Avengers_ yet _?_ Mama, come on now, there’s just no excuse.”

“No.”

“We will watch it with the others.” She gives a sad shake of her head. “My own mother,” she sounds bereaved, and Lena had no idea how melodramatic children were. “This is just- just a disgrace.”

Lena’s mouth twitches in amusement, finding the girl quite entertaining as she goes on to list the attributes of the entire franchise before moving on from it altogether. Eventually they migrate back to the family room, Lena making herself comfortable on the sofa.

“Okay, so I thought about it when we were in the car, and since you don’t have any memories of us, how about I show you some?”

Lena raises her brows as the little girl dashes out of the room. She comes back a few minutes later, arms full of blankets and pillows, and a tablet. She sports an enormous grin, nearly splitting her face. She shrugs when Lena shoots her an inquisitive look. “We have to be comfortable. Now that I have my tablet, I can connect it to the tv. We can watch some of our home videos.”

The idea is appealing to Lena. Aside from photos, she hasn’t seen herself interact with the children and Kara. She has questions about her life, about the woman she was, the type of mother, and so on and so forth. “Okay,” she agrees, patting the cushion, inviting the girl to settle in beside her. She finds her presence a reassurance that she hasn’t made a mess of her life. She did something good.

Oona plops next to her, maneuvering pillows, and throwing a blanket over them. She turns on her tablet, and Lena is startled to find on her lock screen, a photo of Oona, Kara, and herself. Oona is a few years younger, maybe five. Her round cheeks gave her the appearance of a cherub as she scrunched her face as her mothers kissed her. Oona catches her looking. “This was my first day of school. Eilís took the picture.” Her eyes light up as she unlocks the device, opening a folder, her finger rapidly scrolling through rows of videos until she stops.

She turns on the tv and connects her device before casting.

 _“Are you ready?”_ Lena startles at the sound of her own voice. It isn’t often she has the opportunity to listen to herself, nor does she really like listening to herself speak. Her inability to conceal her slight accent reminded her of her failures. If Lillian had known sending her to boarding school abroad would result in an accent not native to America, she would’ve never sent her.

Onscreen, the camera pans out to show Eilís and Oona, absolutely miniature with their giant backpacks that are bigger than they are, absolutely delighted to go to school. They wore matching blue and green plaid jumpers with pressed, short sleeved, white blouses underneath. Their knee high socks were blue, and they wore light up sneakers. The difference in their appearances was how they styled their hair. Being an almost identical twin probably didn’t leave them a lot of room to be individuals.

_“Yes mama,” they say, sidestepping their mother as she approaches them, hyper vigilant of Lena’s every move._

_“Mama, no,” Oona whines as Lena corrals her to adjust her hairband that matches her uniform. “It’s fine,” she bats at her hands, trying to duck out of her mother’s reach. Lena is quicker._

“Ugh, I don’t miss when you used to do that,” Oona comments, making a face as Lena fixes her hair. “You were so annoying about it. So a couple of strands got loose, big whoop!”

“Presentation is important.”

“ _Presentation is important.”_ Lena blinks as the little girl beside her starts giggling. She walked into that one. “ _I just want you guys to look good on your first day of school. First grade is a big step.”_

Lena frowns as she turns to Oona. “First grade?”

“Oh yeah, we skipped kindergarten. You wouldn’t let us skip any other grades, but we knew all of our numbers and how to read. We were five when we started school because our birthday is in October.” Lena bobs her head thoughtfully as she quickly does the math in her head.

“So you’re technically in the right grade?”

“Yeah, almost everyone is older, but oh well it happens. Age is just a number.”

Lena wishes she had that mentality when she was the youngest in school, surrounded with peers who were at least two years older than her. She had a bit of complex regarding her age, automatically bordering on the defensive when someone made a comment about her youth. At MIT, she was able to fly under the radar a little more, and it wasn’t as if she was the only child genius. Still her age had always been a sore spot, especially once she stepped in the role of CEO. The board often regarded as nothing more than a child playing dress up.

_“You didn’t fix La’s hair.”_

She finds she is offended on her counterpart’s behalf. Mothers were allowed to worry about their children without being called out by said children.

“That’s Orla. We have nicknames. I’m O, Eilís is E, Orla is La since I’m already O, and Liam is L.”

“Clever.”

 _The camera flashes over to Orla who is waving her arms emphatically, abruptly stopping when she notices the lens on her, flashing a grin as she tries to detract attention from herself. Orla sported the same uniform as her sisters. Her blonde curls are messy and wild around her head as she smiles innocently, too innocently. “Orla Elanor Luthor,”_ Lena recognizes it as the _mom_ tone. There is a sharpness and slight edge to her voice as she stares down her daughter with narrowed eyes. “ _What happened to your hair?”_

“Luthor?”

“It’s really Danvers-Luthor, but that’s a mouthful.”

“And Elanor?”

“It’s from _Lord of the Rings_. It means star sun. Mommy is a huge dork like Auntie Alex.” She holds a finger to her lips as she giggles. “Shh. I didn’t say nothing.”

“What’s your middle name?” Lena hadn’t asked beyond any of their first names. Seeing all of them onscreen, hearing their voices and getting a sense of their personalities, she has a better picture of them, the kids who call her mom. She finds she wants to learn everything there is to know about them.

“Grace, E’s is Hope, and L’s is Oran.”

_“I woke up like dis.” She plants her tiny hands on her hips, almost an exact replica of her superhero mother as she shoots her mother a withering glare. “It’s fine.”_

_Kara snorts behind the corner. Lena shoots her an annoyed look as if to blame her, stalking over to their daughter who is backing away from her. “Freeze,” Lena orders when it seems the little girl is about to take off. “I don’t care if you don’t like your hair how I styled it or not, you’re going to wear it like that. Your hair tangles too easily and it’s too long for you to wear it loose.” Orla pouts and looks up at her mom with watery blue eyes. The mother isn’t fazed, ignoring her daughter’s theatrics as she wrangles her closer. She pulls a brush seemingly out of thin air and brushes the front back, smoothing the hair into a ponytail. She holds out her hand in front of Orla, who smashes the hair tie into it. She pulls out the ribbon next and hands it over to her mother, pouting and grumbling as Lena fixes her hair._

_Lena weaves the blue ribbon around the ponytail, tying it into a neat and even bow. “There,” she kisses Orla’s head. “Give mama a kiss, come on,” she tickles under her chin. Orla tries to keep a straight face. “The tickle monster wants a kiss.” She goes for the sides, fingers digging into Orla’s flesh as the little girl tries to squirm away. Her face breaks as she starts laughing uncontrollably. “Just one kiss,” Lena offers. Orla shakes her head, a stubborn gleam in her eyes. “Then say uncle.” She goes in for the attack, tickling the girl everywhere and not stopping. Orla squeals loudly as she tries to get out of her mother’s clutches, unable to break away._

_“Uncle,” she says breathlessly. “Uncle, uncle.”_

_Lena releases her, blowing a raspberry on her cheek much to her daughter’s delight. Orla plants one on her mother’s lips before running away. “Oh you little monster!” She calls out with a laugh, shaking her fist. “Now back to you two, first grade isn’t like pre-k. You’re officially big girls now.”_

_“You said we were big girls.” Eilís crosses her arms with a huff. Her sister follows suit, mirroring her twin. “Did you lie? ‘Cause you said lying was bad.”_

_“Well yeah- I- of course you are. I mean that you’re going to have responsibilities. You won’t be in the same class, so the only time you’ll see each other is at lunch and recess. There will be homework in first grade, no naps. There are going to be a lot of changes.”_

_“Lena, babe we’ve gone over this with them. They know.”_

_She sighs, kneeling before her daughters. She straightens the collars on their shirts, adjusts the ribbon on one of Eilís’ braids. “I know. I’m going overboard.” She looks up at Kara, a mix of emotions reflected in her eyes, and resignation on her face. “They aren’t my little babies anymore, now they’re going to school. I can’t protect them from the world. Soon they won’t want to watch Disney movies with me. They’ll think I’m lame.”_

_“They already think you’re uncool.”_

_“Ha ha, very funny.”_

_The twins glance at each other, nod once before wrapping their thin arms around their mother. They pat her back as she cries. “There, there,” Oona comforts her mother. “It’ll be okay. We will be fine. We are big girls. We got all of our supplies. We know our teachers’ names. If it’ll make you feel better, you can hold our hands and we will watch all the Disney movies you want this weekend.”_

_Lena pulls back with a glare. She turns to her wife, gesturing wildly to their children, squawking indignantly at their patronizing tones. “They’ve been spending too much time with your sister and her wife.”_

_Kara scoffs at her, moving closer to the trio. “Uh she’s your best friend, and let’s not forget who is responsible for their first word being a certain four letter word that starts with ‘F’.”_

_“It was an accident. When will you let me forget it?”_

_“First off never, I had to write that in their baby books. Secondly, you learned your lesson when they said it in front of like fifty people who kept shaking their heads at us. Alex made one of those crack videos of the whole thing. And my mom, ugh my mom, I couldn’t even look at her for months after that.”_

_“I said I was sorry.”_

_Orla walks back into the frame with Liam hot on her heels. His bottom lip juts out as he holds his arms out for Lena to pick him up. She scoops him off the floor, holding him close, pressing a soft kiss to his curls. “What’s wrong little man?”_

It’s the first time Lena has seen him outside of photos. Seeing all four of them, she feels as if she should know them. There’s a tightness in her chest and a slight migraine forming as she tries to force herself to remember something, anything. Watching these tiny people who resemble her, have inherited some of her characteristics, she wants the memories, the good and the bad. Liam is the only one to have inherited her dark hair and green eyes. Some of his features definitely come from Kara’s side of the gene pool, she can recognize bits of her cousin in him. She freezes at that thought, never having thought too deeply about what it meant for Kara to be Supergirl.

_“Me go too,” he cries, his lips trembling as his face crumbles. “Me go wit’ La.”_

_Orla fidgets, shifting side to side as her brother becomes increasingly more upset. “I wasn’t trying to make him cry. I just said I was going to pre-k and not preschool.”_

_“Sorry buddy, you’ll be going to preschool. You’ll see your sister when you get home from preschool with jeju.” Lena presses her lips to his forehead. “Next year you can go with them, but this year, you can’t. You’re too little.” Liam doesn’t appreciate this answer and begins to throw a tantrum, the camera shuts off immediately._

_When it turns back on, they are no longer within the comforts of their home. They stand outside a brick building with parents and children walking in the background. There are few groups of parents crowded together, conversing happily, while their children hang at their sides. Some kids traipse passed them without an adult, confidently striding into the building as if it were any other school day._

_Kara kneels beside their three daughters with a radiant smile on her face. Her eyes are bright and happy as she hugs them. “Are you ready?”_

_“Yea!”_

_“Hell yeah!”_

_“Darn straight!”_

_“We are never letting your sister babysit again.”_

_Kara laughs as they walk into the building. “As long as we don’t get any reports from their teachers, we will call the day a success.”_

_There were brightly decorated bulletin boards welcoming students back. The halls were absolute chaos with children and adults moving in every direction. They found Orla’s classroom, moving inside where her teacher instantly greeted them with a welcoming grin._

_“You must be Orla.”_

_Orla backs up into Kara’s legs, clutching her mother’s pants. “Yes.” She answers cautiously, none of the spark she had earlier present in her demeanor. “Orla Luthor.”_

_“I’m Miss Reed, it’s lovely to meet you. We have a fun year ahead of us.”_

_Orla glances back at her mothers, fear shining in her bright blue orbs. Miss Reed manages to coax her further into the classroom. “This is your cubby. You will hang up your backpack here, and there’s even a little space for your lunchbox.”_

_Lena passes the camera to one of the twins as both mothers help Orla with her belongings. They remove her school supplies and help her move them to her desk. Her teacher assures them she will help all of the students sort through their things, and they don’t need to do anything else._

_“Okay princess, it’s time for us to leave.”_

_Orla isn’t fond of this idea. A few tears cling to her dark lashes as she stares at her mothers in disbelief. “Don’t leave me, please, can’t I stay with you at the office mama? I don’t wanna be alone. Don’t go.”_

_Her mothers are taken aback by her reaction. Lena pulls Orla into her arms, holding the girl tightly. “I need you to be a big girl. School can be scary in the beginning, but you’re going to be awesome. I bet you’ll have tons of friends in no time. I’ll be here at two thirty to pick you up and I’ll take you and your sisters out for a first day treat. I can’t do that if you don’t complete it, can I?”_

_The tiny blonde shakes her head, wiping her eyes. “Can we watch a movie when we get home?”_

_“We can do whatever you want. I love you.” Lena cups her flushed cheek, kissing her before pulling away._

_“Good job mama.” Kara beams at her, giving her a thumbs up. “Alright munchkin, we have to take your sisters now, but I have a feeling you’re going to have the best first day ever. You’re going to have so much fun, you’ll forget about your old moms.”_

_“Speak for yourself,” Lena teases._

_“I won’t be here after school, however I’ll see you when you get home. We’ll order Chinese for dinner.”_

_“Yay potstickers!!” Orla claps, bouncing in place. “I love you mommy.” She kisses Kara before running off into the classroom with nothing more than a wave goodbye, Orla essentially forgetting they exist._

_“Ouch,” Kara pouts. “I didn’t expect that to hurt so much.”_

_“I’ll still be here.” Lena winks salaciously with a saucy grin._

_“Watch it you, we are surrounded by minors.”_

_They make their way to the first grade hallway, stopping at one of the doors. “Eilís, you’re up first.” They enter the room and Eilís confidently introduces herself to the teacher. She struts right up to the woman, making direct eye contact as she holds out her hand._

_“Hello, I’m Eilís Luthor.”_

_“I’m Mrs. Parker, it is a pleasure to meet you.” She shakes the proffered hand with a touch of amusement. “Do you need help finding your cubby?”_

_“Nope, I can manage all on my own.” She boldly stalks down the row of cubbies, stopping in front of the one bearing her name. She slides out of her backpack, hanging it up all by herself. She unzips it, removing her school supplies, carrying them over to her desk. She ignores her mothers’ attempts to help her as she sets them on the desk with her name tag._

_Eilís is quick with her goodbyes. She hugs her mothers and then practically shoves them out of the classroom without as much as a single tear._

_Oona clasps her hands tightly as they go two doors down across the hall. She hangs back when Kara opens the door, refusing to enter the room. “No,” she growls when Kara tries to get her to go inside. “I’m not going.”_

_“Why not?”_

_She tilts her head up, a look of defiance crossing her face. “Because I don’t wanna.”_

_“That’s not a good reason Oones.”_

_“But mama!” Her voice hitches. “Ne m’oublie pas.”_

_“I could never forget you. It’s only a few hours-“_

“Why did you turn it off?”

“Because it’s a lie. You did forget me.” The mother feels as if she has been slapped. The words are soft, but they hit their target. She can’t deny the veracity of the girl’s statement, the semantics of the situation matter not to a nine year old whose entire life has been changed by circumstances out of her control. While seeing her for the little girl she is, it hits her that while precocious, Oona really is a child. She’s trying her best to understand the situation, but this is something out of her depth.

Lena takes the girl’s hand in her own, gently cupping her face as their eyes meet. “I didn’t do it on purpose. The circumstances were out of my control. If I could control it, I wouldn’t want to forget the last nine years with you.” She wishes there was an easy fix to her memory problem, one that would take away Oona’s pain, make everyone’s disappear, but it is out of her hands. It’s an impossible situation all around. “I want to fix it for you, but this isn’t like one of my inventions. The human mind is a mystery.”

“I wish it were more like a computer.”

“You and me both, so did you have a good first day?”

“I did. You took us out for ice cream and then we went to the park down the street from our house. I think you did it so we would run off our sugar highs.” Her forehead crinkles. “We are homeschooled right now. It’s bo-ring. But we got in trouble for skipping, and I think mommy was worried we would do the same this year. None of us wanted to go back to our house anyway.” She shrinks in on herself, chastisement on her face as if she hadn’t meant to reveal any of that.

Lena can sort of empathize with the feeling of not wanting to return somewhere because of the memories, except in her case her memories weren’t the happy, idyllic kind. She loathed almost every second she had to live under the Luthor Mansion from the outright neglect she received from her mother to the mental torture she endured from her brother. She didn’t know what it was to escape from a place that brought joy instead of bitterness and contempt.

“Do you want to go back?”

“Oh yes,” she scoots closer to Lena, bringing her hand into her lap. “I like school. I like going on field trips. Last year I won a poetry and essay competition, and I was in third grade. I really miss my friends though.” Her face falls sulkily as her genial mood disappears. “I like my siblings, I do, but they can’t replace my friends. They’re all I see. It was fine all summer ‘cause none of us wanted to go back.”

“How is homeschooling going?”

“It’s going.” She answers succinctly as if the two words sum up her entire experience so far. She returns her attention to her video library, scrolling through and clicking as she goes. She lets a clip play for a few seconds before dismissing it.

“Wait! Stop!”

“What?”

“What is this one?”

“Uh that’s from February. You and jeju had like a wedding. What is it called when you say your vows again?”

The corner of Lena’s mouth ticks up into a smile. “Vow renewal or a recommitment ceremony.”

“Yes, well that’s what this is. We did it in our backyard. We decorated it all pretty and you and jeju got dressed up. We got to dress up too. You let Eilís and I ‘marry’ you again. Do you want to watch it?”

She shouldn’t want to watch it. She can’t sate her burning curiosity. Lena has to know. “Yes.” She wants to see herself ‘in love’, to really finally _know_ this is real. The kiss felt incredibly real, the attraction between them undeniable, in the end though attraction didn’t equate to love.

“Okay,” Oona presses play, shooting her a worried look.

_Oona and Eilís stand at the head of the alter on a platform with Kara and Lena in front of them. Orla stands behind Kara, while Liam stands behind Lena each wearing a proud grin and giving their sisters a thumbs up._

_“Dearly beloved,” E starts with a massive grin on her face as she looks at her mothers. “We are gathered her today to join mama and jeju in holy matrimony.”_

_The camera moves over the ‘gathered’ revealing Kara’s moms, Jess, Sam, Alex, and their kids, and the remaining chairs filled with stuffed animals and dolls._

_“If anyone knows why these two shouldn’t be married, please speak now or forever hold your peace.” Oona glares at everyone, daring someone to make a sound. She nods her head when no one speaks up. “Perfect!” She claps, bouncing on her toes as light dances in her eyes._

_“Let’s skip to the vows. This is a lot and kinda boring, so let’s get to the good, important stuff. Mommy, why don’t you go first.”_

_Kara squeezes Lena’s hand as she gazes into her eyes. “Lena, I remember meeting you like it was yesterday. I came away from our first meeting feeling confused by you. You weren’t like the rest of your family, which would’ve honestly been easier. The second time we met, I left extremely irritated and wanting nothing more than to destroy you with my article.” Lena giggles, lowering her head as she recalls Kara’s admittance of a scathing first draft. “I thought you were arrogant and stubborn, turns out I was right on both fronts, but you were much more than I could have ever believed. Rewriting that article was the best thing I’ve been forced to do in my life. It gave me a chance to see a different side of you, which led to you decorating my office with flowers.”_

_“Still I was convinced you were being friendly, so I didn’t question it. Then you invited me to your gala. I couldn’t understand why I said yes when we barely knew each other. You bit your lip and I was a goner. You could’ve convinced me of literally anything at that moment. Then you later showed up at my apartment, getting jealous of my sister, and asking me to arrange a meeting with Supergirl. Let’s say you really piqued my interest after that. On and on, time and again, we got to know each other, and I saw what an incredible person you are. You chose to break away from your family and become a different type of Luthor. I chose to keep saving and defending you because I believe in you. It didn’t matter what name I used because you Lena Luthor, you deserve to have people believe in you and see your inherent goodness.”_

_By this point they were both crying in earnest, neither made a move to hide the evidence. “Who you were doesn’t matter. It’s who you are that made me fall for you.” Lena chokes back a sob. Kara lifts her hand to tenderly brush some of her tears with the softest smile, her eyes full of love and adoration. “You’ve given me more than I could ever ask for just with your love, but then we had these amazing tiny beings we call our children. I thought my heart couldn’t get any fuller. Every day I find I love you more than I did yesterday.”_

_“I fell in love with you while you were my best friend, yet kept searching for the one who completed me when all along you were there beside me. I never considered you an option when you were the only one from the start. You saw me as Kara, called me your own personal hero when no one else did. We’ve gone through some things and came out on the other side stronger for it. You believed in me when you barely liked me. How could I overlook that? I loved you before I really knew what it was and I’ll keep loving you long after we’re both gone. There is no one else out there for me but you. You are my favorite thing about earth. I would rather watch my planet blow up a thousand times than lose you once.”_

_“Okay Romeo,” Lena laughs whilst crying. She had no idea how she had gotten this lucky._

_“Mama, it is your turn now. Also good job jeju. That was very romantic. I’m proud of you.” Oona winks at her mother, patting her on the shoulder as her siblings giggle._

“What is with you and romanticism?” Kara had mentioned something about it the other night. Lena thought she was exaggerating at least a little about the little girl’s fascination with romance. Yet, the Oona on the tv and the one beside her had the same dreamy, far off look.

“Love is beautiful and magical. People have been writing about it since like forever, so it must be something super special. I can’t wait to fall in love and find my special person.” Oona furrows her brow, feeling the need to further elaborate. “I guess I grew up seeing how in love you and jeju are. It’s like in all of the princess movies. It’s the kind of love Wesley and Buttercup have in _The Princess Bride,_ or in _Howl’s Moving Castle._ It is deeper than your looks, totally unique. _”_

_“I’m not the wordsmith you are. There are barely words to describe what I feel for you. When I moved to National City, I had two goals. The first was to change my company’s image and rebrand, at least before my brother interfered. I didn’t realize my second goal would be my toughest challenge and result in the greatest happiness I have ever known.”_

_“When I first saw you, you were standing behind your cousin, not that I was aware of that detail at the time. You weren’t a reporter, so it definitely made me take notice of you. You were understanding of my situation whereas everyone else was quick to judge me. I was just another Luthor except to you. You kept coming back. I had never had anyone like you in my life. Then there was the other you, the Supergirl you. I wanted to prove Luthors and Supers didn’t have to be enemies. My brother had made quite the mess for us in Metropolis. I thought I could prove to people that we could live and work in the same city. We haven’t always agreed whether you were Kara or Supergirl, but you never expressed hatred to me or held my brother’s actions against me.”_

_Kara lifts Lena’s wrist to her mouth, pressing her lips to the inside to offer her reassurance._

_“You got under my skin with your infuriating defense of why I was wrong. I liked you from the start. When it seemed like you didn’t reciprocate my feelings, I resigned myself to friendship. If I couldn’t be with you romantically, being in your life as a friend was surely better than not being around you. I thought I would get over it, except the more I got to know you, the more I fell in love with you. I was baffled that someone as strong in their convictions would defend me when all the signs would point to my guilt. You were the first person to believe I wasn’t the monster I was convinced I was. You told me I was a hero.” Her eyes are shiny but happy, so happy._

_“You kept coming back and kept being my friend. When I found out the truth and ran, you tried to chase me. I needed you to let go and you did, and without you there, I finally began to see what I had done. I had to do it alone and then you were there to pick me up after all the fallout. You opened your heart to me when I crushed yours and gave us another chance. You interrupted my carefully planned proposal with your own, and then agreed to elope with me right then and there as if it were nothing.” Her face softens as she steps closer, still keeping enough distance for their interaction to be considered appropriate. She wasn’t trying to scar anyone._

_“I was lost for a long time, long before you entered the picture, but then you were there. It is difficult now to think of a time when you weren’t there, supporting and loving me. Life doesn’t always go the way we planned, but you’ve taught me that’s how it goes. You’re my light when I’m lost. You bring me home when I’m lost by lighting the way. Through all the good times and the bad, you’ve been there for me. Even when we were apart, I knew you would be there. You’re there to catch me whenever I fall, literally and figuratively. My heart is wherever you go. You’re my sun, my whole universe. I’m going to love you long after time ceases to have any meaning.”_

_“Who’s the Romeo now?”_

_Lena moves in for a kiss at the same time as her wife, only to be halted by a tiny hand. “Not yet,” Oona tsks, glaring at her mothers for interfering with tradition._

_“We’re already married.”_

_“Nope. Continue E.” She directs her sister._

_“Great, now that you’ve completed your vows, it is time for the rings.” The mothers chuckle at Eilís’ exuberance. She fixes them with a stern look that elicits a few laughs from their guests. “Alright jeju, repeat after me. With this ring, I take you Lena Kieran Danvers-Luthor to love forever and always.”_

_Kara side eyes her, curtain she is taking a few liberties, but does as tasked. She smiles in thanks as Orla offers her Lena’s band, gently taking Lena’s hand to slide the ring on. “With this ring, I take you Lena Kieran Danvers-Luthor to love forever and always.”_

_“And mama, you’ll say with this ring, I take you Kara Zor-El Danvers-Luthor to love forever and always.”_

_Liam hands his mother the ring. She ruffles his curls before turning back to her wife. “With this ring, I take you Kara Zor-El Danvers-Luthor to love forever and always.”_

_“Now by the power invested in us by… uh- you guys, we now pronounce you wife and wife. You may kiss the bride.”_

_Kara’s hands slide into Lena’s hair as their bodies fit together, an intimacy born from years of friendship and a decade of marriage. Lena caresses Kara’s flushed cheeks before pulling her down for an earth shattering kiss. They melt into each other as their lips meet frantically with thrashing tongues and crushing lips, their pace frenetic, slowing to something deeper, warmer as their tongues gently grazed one another’s. Before they could get too carried away, someone, presumably Alex cleared their throat._

_Kara and Lena pull away with intense gazes, Kara’s fingers trickling down Lena’s spine, a tender expression forming on her face. Lena’s arms were locked around Kara’s neck, teasing the hair at the nape of her neck, her eyes hungry and full of longing._

_“Are you done kissing yet?” Liam interrupts, stepping between his mothers. “I’m ready for cake.”_

_“Ugh L, you are the worst. Can’t you see they’re having a moment?”_

_“Where’s your appreciation of a bonafide movie scene come to life?”_

_“Dont’cha want to enjoy mama and jeju being in love?”_

_The little boy stares at his sister’s aghast. “No. I want that cake.”_

_Alex chuckles. “Thanks L, you’re truly my favorite. You know your priorities.”_

_“You just hate seeing us kiss,” Kara rebuts._

_“Oh hell yeah!”_

_“JAR!!!”_

“You did a great job officiating.”

Oona sits up straighter, her face lighting up at the compliment. “Thank you! We wanted it to be very special. We planned the whole thing with Nana and Aunt Sam. All you guys had to do was show up.”

They’re interrupted by the opening of the door. Lena is flooded with nerves as the sound of multiple footsteps reach her ears. Within seconds, there are three other faces staring at her in disbelief, each with a different visible reaction.

Eilís glances back at Kara, who has a black and white cat in her arms, her lips trembling as she stumbles backward. Oona is off the couch instantly and rushing to console her twin. Orla doesn’t seem to be fairing much better, but Liam the youngest has no issues approaching her. “Hi mama,” he wraps his arms around her, rubbing his face against her chest as he snuggles in close. Lena has long admired the easy affection of children. “Your head got a boo boo?” He asks, blinking his innocent green eyes, _her eyes_ , at her. It is disorienting to see so much love and care reflected back at her.

She fumbles for a second at his question, unaccustomed to conversing with children under 10. “I uh yes.” She winces at her pathetic reply.

“That’s right. Remember Liam, I told you mama isn’t going to seem very much like herself. She doesn’t remember you, so you have to introduce yourself.”

“Oh yeah, I’m Liam. I’m six.” He pulls back and offers his hand like she witnessed his sisters doing on their first day of school.

“It’s nice to meet you.” His grin is as cheesy, warm, and contagious as his mother’s. He scrambles out of her lap, jabbing her with one of his elbows. “Oof.”

“Sorry.” She forgives him instantly with his gap toothed smile and his adorable dimples.

Orla is more reserved as she approaches. She is as sweet as her brother and sister. “I’m Orla. I-is it okay if I give you a hug?” It is the eyes. They remind her of blue firecrackers just like Kara’s, and she has failed more times than not to say no to her. Lena opens her arms for the girl. The warm feeling returns as tears spill down her cheeks. She holds onto Orla, pulling her into her lap as she buries her face in her blonde hair. Inhaling softly, she is inundated with the scent of strawberries and salt. Orla tightens her arms around her. “Missed you mama, so much,” she whispers into Lena’s skin. She feels the words penetrate through her layers.

With one last squeeze she pulls away and she’s left with one last child. With the two of them standing before her, Lena really has her first glimpse of the twins together. They carry themselves very differently. Oona’s stance is relaxed and she has an encouraging smile painted on her face as she nudges her sister forward. From the beginning, she reminded her of Kara.

Eilís is a different story. Her eyes are wary as she trudges forward, and Lena senses her hesitance. She looks down to study her hands as she clasps them, then unclasps them. “Hi,” Lena greets her. The girl reminds her of herself at the same age, not quite trusting of what was in front of her.

“Hi, I’m Eilís.” While similar to her twin’s, hers is pitched just a smidge higher than Oona’s.

“Well you already know who I am.”

“Right,” she chuckles humorlessly. “We don’t have to hug if it’ll make you feel bad or uncomfortable.” 

“Is that what you want?”

The little girl shakes her head. “No but it wouldn’t be right if you don’t want it.”

“It’s okay.” Eilís comes crashing into her as if she never wants to let go. The others pile in as if sensing something monumental occurring.

Lena doesn’t know what the feeling is fluttering around in her chest, but she doesn’t want to lose it. This is magic. It is a gift she hadn’t known to ask for, one she appreciates all the same. Feeling the heat of Kara’s gaze, she looks up to find her with that same tender expression from the vow renewal, the one that made her heart skip a few beats. It was one thing to see it in a video, a wholly different thing to encounter it in real life.

They aren’t ideas any longer, people in pictures just out of her reach. They are half her, half Kara- the best of both of them. Despite all of the ups and downs, the many mistakes they’ve made, somehow they managed to do this, create four perfect children.

Lena may not possess her memories, may never regain them, and that’s okay. Holding her children, it’s like a flip turns on, and her whole world tilts on its’ axis, changing everything she thought she knew. She has them and that’s not a loss. They are her redemption, her answer to everything, her reason for being.

Their fingers trace her face, clutch her sweatshirt, hold tight to her hand. They are angels. Their sweet voices mingle together as they whisper how much they’ve missed her, they’re hot tears soaking her sweatshirt.

She smiles tremulously as her own tears pour down her face.

This is home. This is where she belongs. She was so convinced she lost something the day her brother proudly boasted about her being played the fool once again, but that was a blip on her journey. She is the real winner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check me out on [ _tumblr_. ](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)  
> I also made a playlist on [ _Spotify_ and ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3IZ50wnqcvXgGN4H7ndiy8?si=wqkAe1iGRgChapUkplBxOw)[ _Apple Music_. ](https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/delicate/pl.u-DdANv0qIN375ye)  
>   
> I hope you guys enjoyed this monster chapter. This got away from me. Lena and Kara are sort of in a weird limbo state. They will eventually get around to talking about their feelings because... _hello_ avoidance never works. Let me know what you thought.


	9. the second hand unwinds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as long as the last one, but here's a little something to tide you over until the 22nd.

Lena excuses herself, rushing to the bathroom to hide the evidence of her tears. The last thing she expected was to completely lose it, the children had slipped passed her defenses, much like their other mother. Staring at them with her own two eyes, soaking up their features and the love they freely offered her, it was unlike anything she had known from the moment Luthor was tacked onto her name.

They were open and bright children, emotionally perceptive and aware, understanding what she needed, even if she herself was unaware of it. She runs the tap to block out her sobs— falling apart on the bathroom floor. Her sight is blurred and she can barely breathe.

Something had been done to her. Someone obviously knew she was on that flight, arranging for it to come down, and then they plucked her from the wreckage. They had done something to her— stolen years of her life— and then they dumped her at a hospital without so much as a scratch on her. To what end, she couldn’t say. If she discovered who it was, they should pray for her mercy. Ten years of happiness was… it was not something she expected or believed she deserved. She bore the Luthor name and their various crimes shadowed her, following her wherever she went, whether it was warranted or not. Eventually, she accepted she deserved the blame— yells of fury, the crows of ‘monster’.

What made her any different in the eyes of public?

“Lena?” The accompanied knock startles her. She scrambles, trying to wipe away the traces of her crying, knowing she’s failing miserably. Kara would take one look at her eyes and see what happened to her. “You don’t have to open the door.” She wasn’t planning on it. “I wanted to tell you that I’m putting the kids to bed.” Lena catches her faintly mumbling something about ‘schedules and bedtimes.’ “I can show you the guest room after that, or one of the twins can. They have an extra thirty minutes they’re allowed to stay up.”

Lena buries her face in her knees, feeling undeserving of Kara’s generosity. How had she done it? How had they repaired what was broken between them? What made Lena finally give into the love she harbored for an achingly long time? She had tucked it away, with the knowledge of the improbability of Kara returning her feelings. She could settle for friendship with the blonde if it meant keeping her in her life.

So she dated James. She did her best until she couldn’t pretend anymore.

Kara’s footsteps taper off as she leaves Lena to her business. A few minutes pass before she pulls herself off the floor, shutting off the water and taking stock of her appearance. She has seen better days, but it isn’t the worst she’s looked by a long shot. Her red nose isn’t something she can hide, nor are her puffy eyes.

She leaves the safety of the bathroom in search of the twins, finding them in the kitchen—seated at the island with warm mugs of hot chocolate. They smile bashfully at her as she tentatively enters their domain, beckoning her over with a wave of their hands. “So O says you definitely prefer for us to address you as some version of mother and not your name.”

“Yes,” she replies succinctly. The idea of them addressing her by her first name makes her skin crawl. She doesn’t think any version of her would be alright with her own children calling her Lena.

“Oh good, I think calling you Lena would be weird as hel-heck.” Eilís corrects herself, noticing the warning glare from her mother. “Is it totally weird? Like I’ve read books and seen movies where people find themselves in a different time and this is sort of like that.”

Lena fiddles with her thumbs, carefully considering her response to the girl. “It’s not quite what I expected.”

“Nothing ever really is.”

“Those are wise words from a nine year old.”

Eilís grins, leaning in close. “You told me that,” she whispers. “You said sometimes you’ve got to let all of your expectations go, otherwise you’ll miss out on the really worthwhile stuff.”

Lena slumps against the counter, her forehead creasing. Her future self’s wisdom hits harder than expected. The words are applicable to her current situation. She keeps expecting to wake up at any minute in her bed with the world the same way it was before all of this. Deciding to ruminate further on this in private, she swiftly changes the subject. She has had the opportunity to get to know Oona, finding the girl an interesting blend of her and Kara. Now, she wants to know about her twin, the other half of Oona.

She fixes her blue-green eyes on Eilís, her mouth ticking up into a smile as she prepares to ask her first question. She wonders if she’ll give the same response. The twins glance warily at one another as Lena leans into the marble. “So E, have you been eating a balanced diet?”

Oona pokes her sister, whispering something that suspiciously sounds like ‘ _it’s a trap!’_ Eilís remains composed as she appraises her mother like she’s a welcome opponent in a game of chess. She crosses one leg over the other, folding her arms over her chest. “Of course,” her voice is sweet and leveled— there are no noticeable tells that she is in fact lying.

Lena notices Oona dropping her head at her sister’s blatant lie. Lena can’t prove it from her words or her face, but the girl lied to her. She finds herself oddly impressed if not aggravated as it does not bode well for her in the future. “Now that’s interesting,” her lilted voice gives Eilís pause as her eyes flash in her sister’s direction. “I have it on good authority that there has been very little consumption of fruits and vegetables in my absence.”

Eilís gulps nervously, as her fingers trace the rim of the mug. Her eyes refuse to meet Lena’s, and Lena knows she has caught her in the act of lying. “Do you want to try that again?” She thinks it’s her rising eyebrow that does the trick as Eilís emphatically bobs her head.

“No, but they’re gross. I mean leafy green stuff doesn’t taste good even when you put cheese on it. Why eat a balanced diet when we’ve got Kryptonian genes?”

Oona rolls her eyes, letting her sister hang herself. If this was the hill she wanted to die on, then Oona would let her, she just wouldn’t follow. “Idiot,” she mumbles with a shake of her, sipping her hot chocolate.

“You’re in fourth grade, correct?” She nods, her brows drawing together. “So you know about fractions?”

“Yes?”

“Well you’re only half Kryptonian, which means half of your DNA is human. As a human, I know I have to eat a balanced diet to keep myself healthy. You’re quite young and it could be that in contribution of physical activity with a decent metabolism that keeps you from gaining weight as a result of your fried and greasy diet.”

Eilís juts her chin out stubbornly, straightening her back as she stares her mother down. “Well you can’t prove that hypothesis currently, and secondly we should enjoy eating like this while we are still young. I mean _old_ people have boring diets full of gross stuff like kale and fruit salad instead of burgers and fries.”

Lena counts to ten to halt her flaring temper. This kid was using logic and fairly sound reasoning to justify her poor eating habits. Lena had to begrudgingly give her credit for it, surprised she had found a worthy adversary in the art of debate. Whereas Oona resorted to defiance and outright challenging her authority, her sister deferred to using Lena’s own methods against her. “You could still eat that in combination with vegetables.”

“No thanks,” she dismisses her mother. “You can keep trying mom, but I won’t ever like vegetables. I trade my carrots at lunch.” The proud smirk on her face infuriates Lena. She doesn’t like finding herself outplayed, especially not by children.

“Wh-what?” She sputters, her eyes moving between the two nine year olds. “Do you Oona?”

“O-of course not, mama.” She roughly elbows her sister in the back, answering Lena’s question, whilst also lying to her for the second time. “I would never.”

“Liar,” Eilís coughs.

“Shut up.”

“I think for your lies, I’ll have to pack your lunches, loading them up with all sorts of delicious things that are so good for you and maybe put a camera in your lunchboxes so I know you ate it.”

Their identical eyes widen in horror, mouths falling open. Lena is proud of herself for that, finding this parenting stuff isn’t as hard as she thought. “Smugness isn’t attractive mom. Aunt Alex said she’s wanted to punch you in the face for your smug smirk lots of times.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

They scoff at her, downing the remainder of their hot chocolate. “Whatever you say,” Oona retorts, clearing the mugs. “Just remember we actually know you. I would say we’ve got the advantage.” Her eyes glint mischievously.

“I’ve always been a quick study.”

“We will have to see,” Eilís comments, hopping off the stool to finish their clean up. Lena observes them as they work in tandem with one another. Oona rinses the dishes as her sister wipes the counters. She finds herself impressed by their ability to clean up after themselves. Her brother hadn’t mastered that skill, leaving all of his messes for her to fix. When they finish, they exchange a series of slaps and shakes that leaves Lena baffled. She never had someone close in age while she was growing up, just Lex. “Okay, let’s show you up to the guest room. Jeju already took your bag up there for you, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

She slides off the stool, her socks slipping on the flooring, ignoring the muted giggles of her daughters. She rights herself. They lead her back to the entryway and up the staircase. There are a few pictures hung on the wall, none of them going back farther than a few months. At least Kara has given it the feel of a home. Lena hadn’t done that with her penthouse in all the time she resided there, never finding it necessary to decorate the blank walls.

Most of the pictures are from the beach. There’s one from Liam’s sixth birthday that has her blinking to clear the mistiness from her eyes. There’s a small gap in his smile as his eyes glow in the flames of the candle. It’s a stark reminder of what she’s lost. She passes a few more, stopping at one she knows was just a few weeks ago. The twins are huddled around a stack of cupcakes, their dour faces a stark contrast to the decorated space. Neither wore their trademark smiles that nearly split their faces. There was a keen sadness in their eyes— one Lena recognized from pictures from her own youth.

“Don’t feel bad,” Oona wraps her arms around Lena’s torso, leaning her head on her shoulder. “You said that grief is an inevitable part of life. That when we love people, we have to accept one day we’ll also grieve them.” Her lower lip trembles as her arms tighten around Lena. Eilís reaches out for her sister, grasping her hand, twining their fingers. Eilís moves around to Lena’s other side to hold onto Lena.

Lena for her part feels lost. At four years old, she didn’t have the vocabulary to associate words with what was happening in her heart and head, except sadness. Later she would attach the word longing to it, collecting other words as she went to describe the sensation.

“You told us the word for it was saudade.” Yes, that was the word that perfectly encapsulated Lena’s emotional state in the absence of her mother. Eilís’ words are muffled with her head tucked into Lena’s side. “I didn’t know I could miss someone so much. Having you back is the best belated birthday present- no the best present I’ve ever gotten in my whole life.”

“Mine too,” Oona chimes in, nestling closer.

“I finally got what you and Oona always said when sometimes English doesn’t really have the words.”

Lena might have met these children very recently, but there wasn’t a single part of her that wished they hadn’t discovered this part of the human experience. “I’m sorry,” she whispers softly, holding them close— her eyelids close as she takes a moment to appreciate what she has.

Eventually, they pull away from one another, the twins apologizing, wiping their faces in their sleeves. A few hours ago, she couldn’t hold back the grimace when she watched Oona do it, but she is slowly coming to understand that it is a child thing. It doesn’t occur to them to get a tissue or hold it in. She admires them for it. “We better go show you. It’s our bedtime.” Eilís groans, sharing a grump look with her sister.

“I know,” her sister sympathizes, patting her on the shoulder. “I can’t believe jeju is being so strict either.” They lead Lena down the hallway, though she doesn’t fail to notice the soft glowing light from one of the doors at the end of the hall.

E twists the knob, opening the door to reveal a simply decorated room. A painting hangs above the bed of the children getting pounded by a wave, their faces gleeful and surprised, and Lena can almost put herself in the moment. She can hear their loud squeals and exclamations of joy as the wave descended on them, thoroughly drenching them, and their cackles of delight as the waves rejoins the sea.

The white duvet has been pulled back, the accent pillows lay on the bench with her bag placed in front of the bed. “Here you are, we would stay, but we gotta get ready for bed. Jeju may have been super cool and like totally relaxed when you were gone, but now that you’re here, she’s all grr _do this_ and grr _things are changing_.” Oona mocks her mother as her sister silently nudges her with wide eyes. “And now there’s two of you to be all grumbly and bossy, but I don’t mind so much. Well as long as you don’t add those vegetables to my lunches.”

Lena fails to hide her amusement as she meets Kara’s gaze— the other woman is leaning against the wall outside the room dressed in a pair of red and blue plaid pajamas bottoms and an MIT t-shirt. Her hair is loose around her shoulders and her glasses are gone. It is a strange sight, Kara as herself, no Supersuit, just her regular every day clothes without the glasses. There is something impossibly soft about her like this in their current setting. The domesticity of it nearly undoes her.

The corner of Kara’s lips curve up at Oona’s impersonation of her. “You know O, I think your mom should add some fresh veggies to your lunch. You haven’t eaten any in months and a growing girl like you wants to be strong, right?”

Oona nearly topples over as she quickly pivots on her heel to face her other mother. She stumbles over her words as she punches her sister. “Jeju, how long have you been standing there?” Her voices pitches up a few octaves. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look today? Absolutely stunning. Your skin is flawless and your hai-“ whatever she was going to say is cut off by her twin’s hand over her mouth. Eilís smiles at her mothers before dragging her sister out of the room, hand still tightly clasped over her sister’s mouth.

Kara shakes her head, mirth dancing in her pretty blue eyes as she pushes off the wall. She stops in the doorway, content to give Lena her space. “Sorry about those two, they’re something else.”

“That’s okay,” she murmurs. “They’re sweet and a little goofy like someone else I know.”

Kara blushes, suppressing a smile. “You’ve already fallen under their magic. I just wanted to check that everything is okay?” Her eyes are searching, and Lena tamps down the urge to open herself up and tell her what’s happening in her head. If Kara is disappointed, she has improved in her ability to hide it. “Okay, well I’m just across the hall if you need me. Goodnight Lena,” she says softly, eyes crinkling.

“Goodnight Kara.” Kara trips, bumping into the doorway on her way out, Lena looks away, pretending not to have seen the effect her words have had on the other woman.

She can’t say she is shocked. She hasn’t been all that nice to Kara. Her gestures were more on the perfunctory side, her words clipped, and her smiles nonexistent. She hasn’t recently given Kara any reason to believe she cares for her, appreciates what she has done.

Though seeming as if it were months ago instead of a mere half a day, Lena’s temper got the best of her in a public space— resulting in her snapping at Kara who had done nothing but look out for her. The guilt sat heavy as she watched Kara withdraw into herself, pasting on a fake smile as they left the office.

She could admit she was an asshole. She hasn’t figured out how to separate the past from the present, so her emotions at any given moment were a mixed bag. In her defense, only twenty-four hours had passed from when she initially woke up to Kara.

All of it was right there, in her mind happening a few months prior, while everyone else had moved on, put it behind them. They had created lives, added to their families, built up their careers. Everything she knew was gone, something else entirely replaced it, something a lot better than what she left behind. Still she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that she, 2020 Lena had done nothing to earn it. It’s all a lot to process, almost too much.

Left alone for the first time in unfamiliar surroundings, Lena takes a seat, her knees not up to the task of holding her up. The burgeoning love blossoming in her chest for the four precious souls she helped make is undeniable. She tries to tell herself it is too soon. She can’t love them after a few hours. It is impossible. She barely knows them, yet there is this part of her— the one that whispered it was real from the start— promises it is love and deep down she hasn’t forgotten the love she has for each of them. While she lacks the memories to accompany these feelings, they are as real as anything and it is okay.

Meeting them for the first time, she was filled with awe and fascination and warmth. The rest of the world ceased to matter, all of her doubts about her status as their mother, her dread over never regaining her memories, everything faded to the background. All of the hurt and sadness she has experienced in her life has gone— there was only room for the purest devotion and fiercest adoration.

She cries again, except these aren’t anxiety induced. They are tears of happiness and love, two things she refused to hope could be hers. Somehow despite all the odds stacked against her, the tragedy that was her life before Kara and the kids, it’s been reduced to white noise.

She hasn’t deluded herself into believing it has completely disappeared; she just has a better understanding of the Lena she was, her motivations and the life she lived, why she embraced a life with Kara.

Taking out her phone, she decides it’s time to finally delve deeper into her relationship with Kara. After watching the home videos, Lena released a breath she didn’t know she was holding, one that has been there for longer than she cares to admit… the day a former blonde assistant timidly peeked out and introduced herself, forever capturing Lena’s attention.

Everything was largely left unspoken about. There weren’t mentions of the hidden meanings of their words, or the sometimes too tight hugs, or how sometimes when their eyes met, the rest of the world melted away. Those things were personal and would’ve involved taking their friendship somewhere else or watching it dissolve before them. Once expressed, they couldn’t go back and pretend, there were two real options that wouldn’t result in awkwardness settling in their relationship, inevitably bringing out the change they were avoiding.

She takes the opportunity to focus on her breathing, the way her lungs constrict when she holds her breath before exhaling, using the time to subdue her rising anxiety and her increasing fears. _What if she failed to measure up to the person she was? What if the memories were gone forever? Who was she going to become when they had their answers? Would Kara stay with her? Or would she seek a divorce? Did she feel obligated to help Lena? Did she want her? Was it for the kids?_

On and on the questions went, plaguing her mind with one implausible scenario after the other. Kara, no matter how much time had passed, wasn’t like that by any measure. Even at the height of her anger, when the red haze clouded her vision, as much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, Kara wasn’t some horrible person, nor was she the worst thing to happen to her. Kara was a flawed being who never meant to intentionally hurt anyone, except for Lex, but there was a lot of history involving their families.

Chickening out, she sets the phone aside, electing to ready herself for bed. She would rather be comfortable first. She changes out of the jeans and hoodie she’s worn all day into pajama pants with Kara’s family crest. She doesn’t know what propelled her to grab them, only finding the material brought her a sense of comfort as she dug through her clothes. She pulls of the t-shirt and discards her sports bra, slipping into a cotton tank. She grabs her toothbrush and heads out in the hall, brow furrowing when she realizes the twins didn’t point out the upstairs bathroom.

Her pulse beats irregularly as she contemplates her next move. There are two lights on down the hall. One of them is Kara’s, so the other has to be one or both of the twins. Lena heads in the direction of the lights, stopping outside one of the doors when she hears voices inside.

“I’m sorry we haven’t been able to do our night routine.” It’s Kara’s voice.

“That’s okay jeju, we understand.”

“You do. Sometimes I forget you are nine.”

There is some rustling on the other side. “Alright, well it’s time to start a new book. Which one would you like?”

“It’s my turn to pick.”

“No way, you totally picked last time.”

“Not true, that was you O.”

“Nah uh, you picked E because I wanted _The Wizard of Oz_ and we read _Alice in Wonderland._ ”

“Oh yeah,” Eilís laughs apologetically. “I did. My bad O, I guess it is your turn.”

“Yes, I know,” there’s that smugness again. They can’t have inherited it from Kara. She is generally too nice with her face open and guileless for all the world to see. 

“So is that the book you want to pick?”

“Nope!” Oona chirps. “I changed my mind. I want to read the first _Chronicles of Narnia.”_

“You only want to do that after you saw the first movie last week.”

“So?”

“Nothing.”

“Let me grab it off the shelf, and then we will start.” A bed creaks, Kara softly pads her way across the room and then journey back. It is at a normal, human pace.

Lena doesn’t know what to think of this. Kara has barely displayed any usage of her powers. It was all she did after telling Lena. She used them at every opportunity, almost showing off once Lena was in the know. She doesn’t believe it was intentional, just the blonde wanting to emphasize she was comfortable with Lena. “Are you guys comfy?”

“Yep!”

“Yes!”

“Great,” Kara replies. “Chapter one, _The Wrong Door.”_

Lena takes a seat outside of the door, unsure of the why’s, but she wants to listen. There weren’t any bedtime readings in the Luthor household. “ _THIS IS A STORY ABOUT SOMETHING_ _that happened a long ago when your grandfather was a child_.”

“That’s a long time,” she believes it is Oona. The voice is a little lower and there was something very Oona about the tone.

“It’s sort of accurate. My parents were children a long time ago.” There are a few giggles before Kara continues with her reading. “Now shh, so I can read. _It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began. In those days Mr. Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road…. It was too late. Exactly as he spoke, Polly’s hand went out to touch one of the rings. And immediately, without a flash or a noise or a warning of any sort, there was no Polly. Digory and his uncle were alone in the room.”_

“Another,” Eilís begs, sleeping coating her voice.

“Not tonight little love, but we will catch up with them tomorrow.”

One of them sighs sleepily. “Love you jeju.”

“I love you too, now get some sleep.”

“Love you mommy.”

“I love you as well. Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.” It takes her a second to register the voice coming closer, she scrambles to her feet too late, coming face to face with a dazed Kara. “Lena,” she breathes, closing the door behind her. “Everything okay?”

“I-I,” Kara lays a hand on her arm, her touching scorching, reminding Lena of their kiss. Some of her resolve crumbles when she meets Kara’s gaze.

Her fingers absentmindedly reach up to touch her lips, remembering the warmth that flowed into her at the first brush. She was sure blood had stopped flowing to her brain, her lungs starved for oxygen, depriving the rest of her body. There was that tiny moment of hesitation and then she heard ‘screw it’, suddenly finding herself caught up in all things Kara.

She thought she had been kissed, none of it came close to her kiss with Kara. It was as if everything that happened between them fell away— no heavy weight pressing down on her chest as she let herself feel, to be present. The rawness of it almost turned her into a puddle. There were teeth and tongues, Kara’s hot and demanding as their tongues danced, sparks flying everywhere.

Her own hands betrayed her as they slid into silky waves and the guttural sounds escaping her were far from the norm. A kiss had never made her feel so much. They were in a constant pull and push, neither retreating, just taking and accepting. The pull had existed between them from the beginning— like gravity. There was no ignoring it.

Her skin buzzed and her heart thundered in her chest as she was consumed by the flames. Those blue flames drew her in and she fell— hard. Her knee moved, sat between Kara’s thighs until she thrust it upward. Kara’s keening cries filled her ears, so she repeated the move, pressing her body closer. There were so many muscles, so many.

And then it was over. Kara had pulled away, fleeing the scene and leaving Lena to come to her own conclusions.

“It’s just me,” Kara says, gently squeezing her arm.

“I was looking for the bathroom.”

“Oh right, I can show where it is.” She leads her in the opposite direction passed the guest room, opening a door to reveal the bathroom. “The kids use the other one.”

“Thank you.”

“Lena,” she sighs. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. Honest, if there’s anything you need, all you have to do is tell me.”

“I’ll bear that in my mind.”

“That’s all I ask, well goodnight again Lee.” There’s that smile again, the one gets her heart racing and her stomach fluttering.

“Night,” she whispers, watching as the woman leaves, smiling shyly over her shoulder before ducking into her bedroom.

Lena brushes her teeth and washes her face. She didn’t know if ten years would do much to change or hinder her looks, but she appears almost exactly the same. There’s definitely a matureness in her face, and any lingering roundness from her youth has disappeared.

Her hips flare out a little more, likely caused by childbirth. She had noticed the silver lines slithering across her abdomen, further evidence she carried children inside of her, felt their movements. She touched them, tracing their individual paths, mesmerized by them. Overall, there weren’t a whole lot of visible changes to Lena Luthor in the last decade, she couldn’t decide if she was disappointed or not.

She shuffles quietly back to the room given to her, closing the door with a silent click. Her phone remains on the bed, undisturbed by the chaos in her head. She climbs into bed, fingers grasping around for the device, plucking it off the mattress. She unlocks it, exiting out of the web browser, hesitating when she spots messages.

It was one thing to explore her photo album. She was delving into unexplored territory— it was the personal side of things she had avoided from Kara after finding out about their marriage. “To hell with it,” she mutters, tapping the app. Kara was at the top, the date next to her name was the date of the accident.

She clicks it open and her heart swells, the desire to take back everything erupts inside of her. The words exchanged between carry a heavy weight, one that goes beyond the friendship they had. This wasn’t words that held a double meaning. Their words were deliberate and thought out, neither missing an opportunity to exchange ‘i love yous’.

* * *

Kara’s ears perk up. She focuses her senses, recognizing the familiar cadence of Lena’s heartbeat. She frowns as it comes closer, stopping outside of her door before she can call out, the door opens as Lena slips through the crack. Kara sits up, scaring Lena. “Is everything okay?”

“Can I stay here, just for tonight?”

She can’t resist her or say no to her. She pulls back the sheets, inviting Lena into her bed. Lena climbs into bed, staying to her side. “Do you know why I struggled to forgive you?”

“No?” She lays on her side, facing Lena, the faint light of the moon reflects off Lena’s porcelain features.

“You were always Supergirl. It was never my friend Kara. You would say I made you feel like a person, but when you would apologize it wasn’t Kara Danvers- my best friend. You as Supergirl and I didn’t exactly have a great relationship and finding out it was you, it broke my heart.”

Kara swallows thickly, reaching across the bed for Lena’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I haven’t thought much about that year in a long time. It’s come up in therapy a time or two. I wish I could give you one reason for why I didn’t say anything, but mostly everything is an excuse.” Lena’s eyes fluttered and she squeezes Kara’s hand. “You were the first person where it was a conscious decision, not on the fly, but someone I had planned to tell.”

The first person she told, Winn, was a result of her excitement of her huge save and her desire to share it with someone. Telling Nia was to demonstrate she understood the pressures the younger woman was going through. Lena was the real struggle, finding the right words to convey the importance of their friendship and Lena’s role in her life, whilst explaining her reticence to telling her everything.

“Was it hard keeping the secret?”

“Mostly I felt guilt. The longer it went on and the more I had to hide the things I was doing, the worse I felt about it. It made feel… well icky, especially when you would start ranting about Supergirl. I wanted so badly to say something and my mouth wouldn’t- couldn’t open. You asked me what my Kryptonite was and I laughed it off.”

“Because that was your Kryptonite.”

“And you,” she says, the dark swallowing up her words. Kryptonite was a lot less painful than the idea of living the rest of her life without Lena. She brushes her thumb over Lena’s knuckle, reluctant to put any boundaries between them. “Everyone in my life kept trying to convince me you weren’t to be trusted. The Luthor last name was notorious and though Clark understood, my friends didn’t. They believed you to be a threat and Alex went behind my back a few times. She refused to take my word. Granted I do my best not to judge everyone as I don’t want to be judged for what my cousin does. Still, I won’t say your last name never made me a little cautious.”

Lena appreciates her honesty. She had wondered at the time if Kara was as forthright as she claimed.

“I didn’t think you were going to try and murder me or others, but some of your views and actions were concerning.”

Lena chuckles wryly, their first negative altercation coming to mind. Kara had definitely surprised her with her take. “Yeah I can see why you reacted the way you did when I explained my alien detection device.”

“I won’t deny it made me defensive and I jumped on my soapbox. I was angry and I really did write a scathing first draft.”

“I know.” Lena scoots closer until they’re sharing the same breathing space. The moon beams spill across her milky skin, leaving Kara breathless in the face of her beauty. Her dark hair is draped over her shoulder. “I would’ve deserved it.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. I was being a bad reporter. I focused too much on my own opinions instead of relaying the facts. The readers didn’t need to know my thoughts on the matter. Like you said, you’re a businesswoman.”

Lena snaps to attention, nudging a stray hair behind Kara’s ear, her knuckles grazing Kara’s cheek. “And you came back,” her voice holds so much wonder and confusion, it makes her heart ache.

Kara licks her lips. “Like I said, some of it was because you were the one person who didn’t treat me differently. Alex has always acted as my protect. That was fine. But as soon as I told Winn, our friendship shifted. He began to work for the DEO and most of our interactions happened when I was Supergirl. James knew because of my cousin. I think I mostly crushed on him as he had treated me the same from the start.” She meets Lena’s eyes, finding none of the condemnation she expected to find. There’s a different emotion, empathy she thinks. “I wanted to belong and it wasn’t until we were sitting on your sofa joking about the flowers that mysteriously decorated my office that I realized I wanted to belong with you.”

Lena’s face shutters as she absorbs Kara’s words.

“I had my friends and family, but they all knew. No one saw me as normal. I craved it and you gave it to me. I selfishly took advantage because I liked spending time with you without my other duties- mostly interfering.” She explains, silence settling between them.

Lena is thoughtful, her thoughts written all over her face. “You mentioned something about Reign earlier.”

“I did?” She searches her memory of the day, wincing when she comes back to their argument. “Right, what about it?”

“You were on the brink of death.”

“Yes…?”

“So that wasn’t you I brought soup to?”

 _Oh_. “No it was J’onn. James had to make a call when he realized you wouldn’t be deterred. You’re desire to be a good best friend won out. I was healing at the time.”

Lena uses her free hand to cover her face, groaning miserably. “I had a conversation about the _James thing_ with J’onn.”

“Yeah,” she winces. “Sorry about that. It was pretty awkward when you realized it and saw him for the first time after.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I kind of laughed about it behind your back and that wasn’t right. It wasn’t about what you said more so the situation but either way it was wrong of me.”

Lena blinks, fingers tightening around Kara’s. It isn’t the worst she imagined, but it stings nonetheless. “I don’t really know what to say.” Maybe she doesn’t have to say anything at all. “No wonder your voice was so deep and you were sitting so differently.”

Kara arches a brow. “You know how I sit?”

Kara finds Lena’s flustered state adorable, her flushed cheeks visible to her in the dark. “W-we uh- oh shut up,” she slaps Kara’s arm.

“I noticed things about you too. Alex said we were both so incredibly repressed and in love with each other, and she’s got terrible gaydar.”

“Thank you for this,” she gestures to the bed and their entwined hands.

“New spaces freak you out. I’ll forewarn you we might have guests in the morning.”

Lena laughs, sobering when she sees the seriousness painted on Kara’s face. “Really? Lillian told me I was too old to sleep in their bed when I was four.”

“Our parenting is basically the exact opposite of Lillian’s. You love cuddles and when they comes to us after a nightmare.”

“That sounds strangely nice.”

“Kids are amazing like that. They make you realize what’s important.”

“I was scared to meet them.”

“I noticed. You did it. They don’t care if you have your memories or not. To them, you’re their mom. It doesn’t change anything for them.”

“What about you?”

“I think I’ve made my feelings abundantly clear.” She tightens her fingers around Lena’s in a light squeeze. “But I’m going to give you space to sort out your head. I don’t want you to feel obligated by any of this, us or the kids. It’s still your life and your decision.” Kara refuses to pressure Lena— her mind drifting to the conversation in Oona’s room. People have to be free to make their own choices.

“I love you. Maybe I’m not quite ready to jump into the whole marriage thing, but my feelings go beyond waking up in a hospital yesterday. I appreciate your patience and hope you don’t mind if I need time to figure things out.”

“Of course not,” she replies.

“I can’t leave the kids. They are already in here,” she brings their tangled hands to her chest. Kara sighs. She missed the feel and sound of Lena’s heart, her mind struggling to conjure the rhythm these last few weeks. “I didn’t know it could happen so quickly.”

“You were always meant to be a mother. A lot of it is innate.”

“What happened with Lillian then?” She asks, bitterness seeping in. Her anger at her mother rekindled.

“I don’t think she knew how to love you and let go of her husband’s betrayal. She took it out on you. You were a child and an easy target.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

Kara nods, her lips brushing against Lena’s forehead. “No it doesn’t honey.”

Lena yawns widely, bringing a smile to Kara’s face. “Time for bed. It’s been a big day and you need your rest. You got a small dose of the kids. They were fairly subdued by the news and the close proximity to their bedtime. You haven’t dealt with them when they’re fully of energy and running around all over the place, so get ready.”

“Tha’s nice,” Lena slurs her words, eyes trying to fight off sleep.

“Shh,” she tucks Lena’s head under her chin. “Go to sleep.” She strokes her hair, fingers slowing as she drifts off to the harmony of Lena’s soft breathing and the beautiful thumping of her heart.

* * *

** ~~ Bonus~~ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this one. The texts definitely required some thought and I feel like it just looks like I never charge my phone lol  
> You can follow me on [ _tumblr_. ](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)  
> The direct quotes are from _The Magician’s Nephew_ by C.S. Lewis, pg 1&17.  
> Let me know what you think, comments really do make an authors day.


	10. i think you know what i've been trying to say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm doing pretty good this birthday weekend. I managed to post chapters for 3 different stories. 25 is off to a good start.

“No! Please no _,_ ” Lena’s eyes flash open when Kara starts crying in her sleep. She hesitates to wake her, terrified she might make the situation worse, ultimately deciding to gently tap her shoulder. “Stop!” She half shouts and half sobs, her chin trembling as she clutches at the blankets.

If she is too forceful, she risks frightening Kara and after everything, that’s the last thing she really wants. “Kara,” she murmurs, keeping her voice soft and even without any traces of emotion. “Darling please wake up,” she lightly strokes Kara’s cheek. “It’s a dream, a bad one,” she whispers, desperately praying it is a dream. “Please Kara.”

Something must reach into her unconscious as crystal blue eyes flash open in confusion until they land on her. Within seconds Lena is pulled into Kara’s tight embrace as the other woman sobs into her neck. Lena stiffens at the sudden contact—out of practice with comforting the blonde—relaxing as Kara’s breaths quicken. Lena snaps out of it and jumps to action, moving her arms to hold Kara, rubbing her back to calm her. “Shh, it’s okay.”

Kara hiccups and presses her face further into Lena’s neck. Lena shivers when Kara's lips brush against the sensitive flesh.

“There are no more bad dreams.”

“Promise?” The wet emotion cripples Lena. Kara’s vulnerability was something she admired for a long time. Lena wasn’t raised to display emotion where anyone could see it, only to conceal it, and revealing her feelings was something in which she had little experience. Every time she did, someone proved why she made a mistake.

Lena knows it is a promise she shouldn’t make, but it is one she feels compelled deep in her bones to make if only to reassure Kara. She shuts off her brain and for the first time in a long time listens to what her heart tells her. “I promise darling.” She runs her fingers through blonde strands and finds comfort in Kara’s soft puffs of breath against her skin. “They are all gone.”

Her mind conjures the words to a long lost lullaby her mother sang to her—she sang herself to sleep to the tune for years, desperately wishing to hear her mother’s voice again and have her arms hold her tight— and she starts to hum the tune, working her way up to singing.

Over in Killarney,many years ago

My mother sang a song to me

in tones so sweet and low

Just a simple little ditty

in her good old Irish way

And I'd give the world if she could sing

that song to me this day

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby.

Oft in dreams I wander

to that cot again.

I feel her arms a-hugging me

As when she held me then.

And I hear her voice a-hummin'

to me as in the days of yore,

when she used to rock me fast asleep

outside the cabin door.

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, hush now, don't you cry!

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, that's an Irish lullaby

Kara takes a bit longer to drift back to sleep after her nightmare, but is lured to safety by the soft cadence of Lena’s voice. Neither break the silence, content to take solace from one another’s presence. Lena stares at the ceiling, fingers still moving through gentle waves, wondering not for the first time how she got here. She has tried to erect a barrier between them, revoking Kara’s all access pass to her, barring her from every corner of her life, selling CatCo, stating in no unclear terms that she was done with her when heart constricted painfully at the gaping hole left behind. It went beyond absence from her life. It was a cut, a wound that cannot heal, left open and made her susceptible to an infection in the form of her brother.

In truth, she wondered as she and Lex shook hands what Kara would think of the alliance she struck. She suspected— and later had her suspicions confirmed in the swift arrival of a blonde hero on her balcony—that Kara would object to the partnership. Lex was the devil she knew and Kara was a wild card. She had to ask herself why it hurt as much as it did to discover she was on the outside the entire time, and could only arrive at one conclusion, love. Not the love one holds for a friend, it was a different kind.

It was a love whose presence she hadn’t detected for years, growing silently in the trenches of her heart, burrowing deeper and deeper to reach the core, until it was all encompassing, leaving her consumed with a love that kept blossoming. It was the love that thousands before her had written about and had agonized over their fates because of it. She had fallen irrevocably in love without realizing it and that’s why it stung to discover it was all a lie. The awareness it brought to her soul was too much—Kara could never, would never return her feelings. How could she, if after years of friendship and fierce loyalty, Lena was the last to know?

It was with stark acceptance she tucked away the box containing her love, deciding she was better off in the end, love was pain. She had enough to last multiple lifetimes.

Her box system wasn’t full proof. There were kinks with hiding away that which she refused to confront head on and in the end it backfired on her. All of her feelings came tumbling out of the box she dumped in the crevices of her mind every time she caught a glimpse of Kara, or overheard a snippet of conversation. The parts of her that weren’t Luthor at all ached to go back to how it was, to a time when it was all simple and easy, when pesky emotions hadn’t gotten involved and there weren’t megalomaniac brothers pent on ruining everything she held dear.

She knows that is the real reason Lex folded in the end, played his last move, giving him a permanent checkmate. Luthors were vicious and went all in into battle, refusing to back down even if they were outplayed. There was usually some other maneuver they could enact to gain the upper hand and that’s how it was. Their family didn’t believe in draws, raising a white flag was considered a sign of weakness, which was her chosen strategy with Kara after the fallout from her stealing Myriad.

Her hand stills in Kara’s hair, and her gaze drifts down to her. Her face is half hidden in Lena’s chest, appearing younger in her sleep, the lines of her face all but disappearing with the muscles relaxed and her body in repose. At the start, it was easy to overlook Kara. The blonde intentionally made herself smaller, hiding behind her persona as a beat reporter and a mousy appearance.

It barely took any time for her to realize there was far more than a nervous young woman who hadn’t quite stepped into her own shoes. She was intelligent, though the extent of it Lena remained unaware for years, sometimes dumbing herself down and dialing back her radiant personality so others could shine.

“You frustrate me,” she keeps her voice low, so Kara’s rest remains undisturbed. “I’ve tried to figure out the magnetism between us and tried to demagnetize whatever it is that keeps pulling us together.” Her hand resumes its’ stroking, the feeling of thick strands is reassuring. “I thought I was done with you. I wanted to be,” she admits to the night. “You can be absolutely aggravating and infuriating with your righteousness and hypocrisy, but then you defend me when no one else would. It never made sense to me, and maybe I hadn’t imagined the spark of something else between us. It was like we spoke our own language, one coded into every action and look, that slipped into our words.”

Falling out of love was the preferable option for her when it hit her that Kara had in fact broken her heart. She thought it was her using a hyperbole when it was her cruel reality that she had fallen for her best friend. “I love you. I always have and even if we can’t figure it all out, I always will.”

Her breath escapes in a long, whooshing noise, the weight of admission is off her chest and has been born into existence. “You’re not the worst thing that’s happened to me. You’re easily the best.”

Kara took her fury, her vitriol, and the blame Lena directed at her when it was her own shame. No one told her to shoot her brother; she did it of her own volition to protect the person she loved most. “I can’t say any of this while you’re awake, and I’m sorry about that.” She has a million sorries. “It was easier for me to believe I meant nothing to you.” She laughs hollowly, the old ache and numbness from her childhood reappearing like a bad sequel. “I was the _other_ Luthor growing up. I was told to forget the life I knew up to that point and to fully embrace becoming a Luthor. There was no going back and it wasn’t as if I had a choice. With my mother, I spent my life being second best. I thought if I could just do something- - anything to get her to see me like she saw Lex, everything would be okay.” She scoffs at her naivety. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get the full story of what happened or why she treated me like she did, but that’s how everyone else treated me too. I was second rate, not a real blue blood, just some poor urchin my parents adopted out of sympathy.

“It was no secret I was closer to my dad.” Lionel doted on her and encouraged her interest in the sciences. He told her the sky was the limit. He believed in her future success and often confided he thought the company had a greater chance of surviving in her capable hands as opposed to her brother. “My mom dealt a huge blow to the image I cultivated of him. I— it really fucking hurt when she dropped the bomb that he was my biological father. Some of those missing pieces fell into places and I hated him for a time. He should’ve told me.”

“Trust and love don’t come easy to me. I know you’ve believed I was capable of it and that I had a bigger heart than I thought, but I couldn’t latch onto that. You were the first person since my brother went to jail I let in. You were there for me after Jack, my mother, and everything else that went wrong in my life.” Kara fit perfectly into the open spaces of her puzzle, as if the slots were made with her in mind. “I hated Supergirl before I knew she was you. It was how you would occasionally treat me like I was another Luthor and like I said that righteousness that comes easy to you and your cousin. Here’s the thing though, as much as I disliked you, I was willing to help because it was the right thing to do. I knew during the Red Daughter thing you were innocent of what they were accusing you of. You weren’t that type of person to abuse your powers in such a terrible way. Believing in you whether as Supergirl or Kara Danvers was a choice I made and I don’t regret any of it.”

“I loved you through it all. I loved you when I was at my angriest and when I was my lowest. I loved you when I chose my brother and when you showed up that night. Loving you wasn’t something I planned. It happened and I can’t stop it. It’s natural. I’m finding it impossible to believe you chose me and married me and we started a family. I-it’s what I wanted but shoved away when it showed no signs of happening. I’ve tossed aside loads of dreams and still none of them have felt like this.”

It is the word that comes to mind when she tries to describe the surreal state of her life. “The kids- - I- - they are real,” she fails to conceal her wonder. “They’re these little people and they love me, like they actually love me.” Somehow her other hand found itself ensconced within one of Kara’s, their hands fitted perfectly. “I didn’t think I was cut out for parenthood, but everything with Oona felt familiar like wearing an old coat. Watching myself be a parent in home videos, I couldn’t get enough of it. She— me— we were so incredibly happy and that’s just never happened to me. So I’m sorry if I’m messing up.”

“‘re no’,” Kara slurs sleepily, tickling Lena’s skin with her lips. “Slp Lee, shh.”

Lena presses her lips together to hide her laughter. She misses this feeling. “You’re adorable.”

“No’ slp’ing.”

“Okay, okay I’m going to sleep.” She slides lower in the bed. Kara’s body moves with her.

In the morning, she discovers they are in good company— it is as Kara predicted. Feet are next to her face and there’s another body strewn across her legs. She lifts her head and there are two other bodies on the other side of the bed. Her eyes follow the trajectory of the body belonging to the feet and deduces from golden waves, it is Orla.

The twins are cuddled together, huddling into Kara’s back, so Liam is the one responsible for the pins and needles feeling in her feet. Kara stirs, mumbling incoherently, eyes fluttering as she fights off consciousness. Her beautiful face no longer relaxed with sleep and she startles, finding clear blue eyes staring back at her.

“Morning,” Kara murmurs, voice thick with sleep.

“We’ve got some guests,” she whispers.

Kara chuckles. “I told you.”

“There’s no need for smugness. It is simply unbecoming.”

“Maybe for people who aren’t accustomed to being right.”

Lena refuses to dignify the statement with a response.

“Be quiet,” one of the twins whines and Kara is pushed further into Lena.

One of the other kids shushes them.

“Too loud,” Orla groans, toes wriggling next to Lena’s face.

“Well there’s an easy solution for that, sleep in your own beds,” Kara suggests with a playful lilt. “Then you won’t have to worry about anyone disturbing you.”

“No!!” They moan in unison.

“First mommy sandwich in forever.”

Kara’s fingers halt on Lena’s arm where they were tracing random patterns. Lena doesn’t know the significant of a ‘mommy sandwich’, but she can surmise it hasn’t happened since she disappeared. “Fine, but tonight you’re all spending the night in your own beds. We’ve got to start practicing for when we go home in a few days.”

Orla’s toes cease wiggling as she slides her legs towards her torso, pushing up into a sitting position. “Home like school?” Her hair lays flat on one side, whilst the other is a tangled mess, begging for Lena to wrangle it. The Luthor in her wants to tame it.

“Yes,” Kara laughs, tickling Orla’s toes. “You get to go to school and hang out with your friends instead of your _old_ and _boring_ mom.”

“I never said boring, old maybe” Orla giggles as Kara continues her assault on her feet. She kicks out her other leg as she tries to stop her mom. “I just said you could make things more interesting. I see the same faces all the time,” she gasps out between breathless bouts of laughter.

The other children jump into the fray with the twins attempting to liberate their sister, while Liam diverts attention by beginning his own assault on Kara. He goes straight for the knees and Lena can feel the vibrations of Kara’s rumbling laughter. It is all incredibly domestic and something out of a book or movie, nothing like her family. Eventually, Orla is free, smirking triumphantly at her mother, and the resemblance between her and Lena in that moment is frightening. She did favor Kara more than Lena, but there was something in her expressions that was all Lena.

“Hah!” She squeals, shaking her hips in some sort of victory dance. “We are the victors! In your face jeju,” she bounces off the bed with a massive, shit eating grin.

“She gets that from you,” Kara glares at Lena.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever looked so smug in my life.”

Kara stares at her, scoffing in apparent disbelief. “You’ve apparently never looked in the mirror after you’ve handled your board or when you come out on top in a business deal Lena. I hate to break it to you, but that’s the same face you make every single time. I think you even looked like that after I took care of Morgan Edge.”

“I did not,” she bites her lip to keep from smiling.

“You did, but it’s fine.” Kara pushes herself up and Lena misses the heat of her body instantly. “You’re terrible at admitting when you’re wrong anyway. Now who wants breakfast before we go to the beach?”

Hours later, Lena is spread out on a blanket, face hidden under a brimmed sun hat and designer sunglasses. Kara assured her the hat was one of hers, Eilís snuck it into her own things when they moved out to Midvale.

The kids play close to the water shuffling into the shore. “Tell me something.”

Kara stretches her body as she rotates over to face Lena. “Like what?”

“Anything.”

“One of my favorite movies when I first landed on earth was _Peter Pan_.”

Lena’s brows arch in surprise. “Why?”

“The story resonated with me. Peter was the boy who didn’t grow up and I was the girl- -“

“Who didn’t grow up,” Lena finishes the thought for her. It is difficult for her to imagine the concept of being frozen for twenty-four year—not by choice—and then discovering life went on in your absence.

“Yeah, I was scared about all of my responsibilities. My parents were talking so fast and their faces were pinched with worry as they tried to hurry me into my pod. I was twelve, nearly nearing my thirteenth year. It was scary. I didn’t know how I would take care of my cousin and instill in him the tenants of our people on a different planet. Earth wasn’t one of the planets we studied, finding it primitive and a touch backwards. Then none of it mattered in the end as I got stuck in the Phantom Zone. Kal didn’t need me. If anything I needed him.” The blue is darker and somber, reflective, lost in time.

“The live action came out the year before I came to Earth. It was one of the movies Alex owned. I loved the magic and the idea that someone else hadn’t grown up either. Without the romantic context and the actual plot, I was Peter and Kal was Wendy. He grew up and I didn’t. But anyway,” she says shifting gears. “That wasn’t the point of me telling you that. I would play the CD that I had burned the soundtrack onto and fly like Peter, doing loops and skimming the water with my hand, having fun and being a kid. It was freeing.”

Lena smothers her laughter, but a genuine smile lights up her face. She has no trouble picturing a younger Kara flying around and letting loose.

“I didn’t tell my parents or Alex about it. I would’ve gotten in trouble. It was my secret.”

“How often did you use your powers before you were Supergirl?”

“Not as often as you might think. I was out of practice and accustomed to living a normal human life.” The somberness creeps back into the blue orbs. “Alex was pissed when I made my debut. She wanted me to continue keeping my secret, but nothing had ever felt so right in my life. I had found my purpose. Sometimes I thought that’s what Peter needed, and it’s one of the reasons I appreciate the movie _Hook_. Being a kid forever sounds nice in theory, but there’s so much life to be lived that can’t be done if you’re a kid.”

Lena never thought to ask Kara about her life with the Danvers. She knew she had lost her parents when she was older and then went to live with her adopted family. She was missing some of the pertinent details of Kara’s life story, but she feels a warmth spread through her that Kara has healed from the trauma of her past. Most people lacked her resilience.

“Now it’s your turn.”

“Don’t you know everything about me,” she teases, thinking about Kara knowing her passwords and other facts about her over the last decade.

Kara rolls her eyes. “Not everything.”

“Hmm…” Lena takes a few moments to pick through her memories for a light story. “I liked reading _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ as a kid. It was my favorite book series. It wasn’t exactly a happy story and I found that appealing.”

“I read a few of those when I was trying to improve my reading. Learning English was trippy.”

Lena forgets sometimes that Kara is in fact an alien whose first language is not native to this planet. Kara sounds like a native, lacking any of the lilt of her Kryptonian accent. “The books reminded me that there’s always hope and my circumstances wouldn’t always be so bleak. Violet was definitely one of the reasons I got interested in engineering. I used to tie my hair up in a ribbon when I was in an inventing mood.” She had forgotten about her love of the books and reminds herself to buy a set of them if she doesn’t have one. “I know some people didn’t enjoy the ambiguity of the ending, but I thought it fit perfectly with the story of the Baudelaire orphans and life. We don’t always know what’s next, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and help ourselves anyway.”

The books comforted her during some of the toughest times in her life. After her father died and she was sent off to boarding school, her books were her only possessions that made her feel safe and as if her world wasn’t ripped apart at the seams. She lost herself in the adventures of the Baudelaire's, attended a magical boarding school with Harry and friends, and even found herself sucked into the emo world of _Twilight_ for a time. She has destroyed all evidence of that time, pretending if anyone asks she has no clue who Bella and Edward are.

Lena decides a topic change is in order. “What’s a mommy sandwich?” There was no explanation offered as a tickle war broke out distracting the family of six. “Sorry,” she apologizes when Kara gets a strange gleam in her eyes. Her face falls and she heaves a sigh, turning onto her back to stare at the clear blue sky.

Kara’s fingers dip in the sand, drawing shapes while the other rests on her stomach. The pinched expression makes Lena regret asking. “Don’t be sorry,” her voice is strong and steady. “It’s basically like a cuddle pile. Sometimes we are in the middle or we are the ones on the outside, but it’s a thing we’ve done with them since they were little. We would stay in bed on Saturday, usually the only day of the week when we had nothing going on, and we would watch movies or read books. Sometimes we played board games. Without you, I’ve been the only mommy and while I won’t say I wasn’t enough for them, it certainly didn’t have the same feel. Everything was tinged with sadness.”

Lena has nothing to say to that, nothing she could say would erase the pain of the last six months.

“Was it hard? For you, I mean,” she clarifies, catching the confusion in Kara’s eyes.

She clasps her hands over stomach, craning her head in Lena’s direction. “Very few things have hurt the way this day did. I had blown out my powers the day before. There was a disaster and Kal and I were on the scene the whole time, assisting search and rescue and trying to do what we could.” Her tongue darts out to moisten her lips. “Maybe if I- -I—“

Lena covers Kara’s hands with her own, cutting her off instantly from her recrimination. “Kara,” she sighs. Kara takes responsibility for everything even when there’s nothing she can do. “You don’t know that. I looked up where they believe the flight went down and it was way too far for you to have heard it.”

Kara’s eyes fill with tears and tears her gaze away from Lena’s. “I can’t help but turn it all over in my head, trying to figure out if it would’ve been possible.”

“Stop doing that,” she reprimands the other woman. “I know you’re not a child and don’t have to listen to me, but bad things happen Kara. Even Supergirl can’t save the day every time. It wasn’t your fault.” Whenever she thought of the hero in the past— the actual hero and not the person behind the cape—it failed to occur to her that there was a person carrying around their own burdens and ghosts. Sure everyone knew about the planet Krypton and its’ fate, but no one ever gave much consideration for what superman and Supergirl lost. All she saw was someone sticking their nose in her affairs and judging her to be a ruthless Luthor like the rest of her family. Supergirl pissed her off with the constant double standards and her lack of faith in Lena. “You aren’t omnipresent and are fallible in some ways. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself when things go wrong. We all do our best and that’s it. Can you try, for me?”

“I guess,” Kara finally says distractedly.

Lena follows the direction of her gaze, gasping when she spies the reason for Kara’s inattentiveness. Oona and Eilís are locked in a duel. They each have a fake wooden sword and are deft at blocking the other. “Uh,” Lena looks at Kara for direction on how to handle the situation, worried about potential injuries, except the other woman merely watches without a hint of worry.

“It’s fine,” Kara waves her off. “It’s all Alex’s fault. I needed her to watch them for a few days when I had to go into the office to handle things. She was watching _Kill Bill_ and didn’t notice until it was too late the twins were there. They think they’re samurais now or at least they want to be. They started watching videos online and _fucking Sara_ is not allowed to babysit after she gave them a lesson. She taught them proper stance and how to hold their positions against an opponent. She gave them points on how to improve their form, block, and use the sword. Then she told them how she’d fought an actual samurai. So they think she’s like the coolest person ever.” Kara grumbles good naturedly.

“Who’s Sara?” Lena’s stomach coils, jealousy weaving around her intestines.

“Oh right,” Kara laughs. “She’s a Legend. They’re not exactly heroes in the strictest sense of the word, but they’ve definitely saved the world a time or two. Though it was also usually their fault there was some crisis. Anyway, she’s a former assassin who’s captain of this time ship, the Waverider.”

Lena finds no less than three things wrong in the sentence. She doesn’t know how she feels about someone who was an assassin around her children. She knows after their original earth merged with another one that there were quite a few other heroes occupying earth. She isn’t used to anyone being as infamous as the Bat and the Supers.

“They practice what’s called kendo, but no worries they’re not using bamboo shinai. And they know they’re not allowed to hit anywhere near the face without protective gear.”

Fear stirs in her gut when Oona deals her sister a particularly nasty smack in the side. It seems to spur her sister into retaliating. “Oona usually tries to get her sister to tire herself out. Eilís is more aggressive in her attack and tends to let her emotions get the best of her.”

Eilís seemed like the least likely option to be an aggressor. “I can’t really picture it.”

“That’s okay,” Kara shrugs. “They all have their moments. Oona and Eilís use this to get out some of their pent up anger and aggression. Eilís broke Oona’s telescope and it’s been an all out war. She tried to deny it, but she was mad at Oona for accidentally ruining one of E’s favorite books.”

Lena can relate to the young girls’ frustration. Lex destroyed a cherished doll of hers—gifted to her by her father— out of jealousy for Lionel favoring Lena over him. She found a way to enact revenge on him, hacking into his computer to post embarrassing pictures of him all over his MySpace. He learned not to underestimate her after that, finally viewing her as a worthy adversary.

“Most of the time they get along, but then there are times when they start up their rivalry again. Luckily it’s stayed mostly between them, though they have dragged Orla into it. Liam,” she flashes a smile, staring fondly at the little boy building a sandcastle with an acute attention to detail. “He lets his sisters just be, never getting involved. He says they’re loud,” she cackles. “My mom has said the same about me and Alex, often reminding me that my sister and I fought incessantly. Even now when we are really mad, we tend to go all out.”

Lena understands that particular brand of warfare between siblings.

“They’re great kids.”

“You’ve played a huge role in that too. I’m not going to lessen the influence of your parenting. You made it a mission to be the exact opposite of your parents.” Kara turns over her hand, lacing their fingers and squeezes Lena’s hand. “You’ve got one of the greatest capacities for love. It’ll take some time to figure out all the little details like food preferences and quirks, but the big stuff— love, you’ve had that from the beginning.”

A lone tear trails down Lena’s face. “Thank you.”

“Anytime. You may be a Luthor but you’ll always be Lena first.”

She likes the sound of that. “Orla, don’t you dare jump off those rocks!” She catches the girl pre-jump, legs bent and arms out with her tongue sticking out, fully prepared to leap.

“See,” Kara teases. “I hadn’t even noticed that.”

Lena scoots closer, close enough that she can make out the freckles dotting Kara’s nose. “How did you keep track of four of them?”

“A lot of trial and error. I’m not really the disciplinarian and they don’t take me too seriously unless they’ve crossed some lines. It’s nice to have another pair of eyes again.”

Lena tracks Orla as she pouts and glares at her mother, obeying the command. She hears the twins duel cease and their mutterings of ‘the warden’s back.’

Kara fights back a smile. Lena reaches out to smack her shoulder. “It’s not funny.”

“Sure it is. You’re much better at punishing them. They think you’re scarier than me and I have super powers.” Kara pouts, put out that her super powers have no effect on their kids. “But that’s okay. I’ve tried to ground them when they’ve acted out and they drive me nuts. So it usually lasts like a day or two before they’ve annoyed me enough that I cave.”

Lena should’ve known. She clicks her tongue at the blonde. “I’m sure Eliza felt the same way about you and Alex.”

“Oh yeah, we got grounded once after we solved a murder. She was proud of us but pissed that we had put ourselves in danger. We were angry that we got grounded. It didn’t seem fair since we solved a crime.”

“And you say I have no sense of self preservation,” she nudges Kara’s shoulder with her leg. “Was it hard pretending you weren’t as smart as you are?”

“I suppose it depended on the subject. Math and science were easy. They’re fairly universal. History and English… ehh… they weren’t my strongest subjects by a long shot. I hated history. Everyone else had grown up with it and it was easier for them, but my planet had their own. So learning about a planet that I didn’t particularly care about wasn’t fun.”

“It’s weird.”

“What?”

“Thinking of you disliking earth.”

“In the beginning, being here was a reminder of where I wasn’t. I was angry and hated everything. But then there was Kenny and Alex and potstickers. I used to think I didn’t belong and never would. I wasn’t like my cousin who had never known another home. And one day I realized it was home.”

“I’m glad.”

“Me too,” their eyes meet and Lena grins at her, unable to repress the urge. “It’s lunch time and we’ve got some urchins to feed. They’ll riot if we don’t. Think we can take them?”

“We’ve had worse odds.”

They wrangle the children, dusting sand off their legs, take the time to admire Liam’s immaculate design—Lena is impressed with his keen eye for detail— and Kara even catches Orla as she leaps off the rock. “Who wants pizza for lunch?”

Lena’s eyes flash angrily in Kara’s direction. She is going to have to do something about all of this takeout. “Kara!”

“What?”

The faux innocence doesn’t work on her. She shakes her head at the woman who is like a kid sometimes herself. “This is the last time. Tonight I’ll cook.”

The kids exchange nervous glances, their faces ranging from mild to outright disappointment. “But it’s Mexican night,” Eilís interjects, looking to her mother for back up.

“Then I guess I’ll be cooking Mexican.”

“But La Pot is like a family institution,” Oona takes up the defense.

Orla bobs her head in fervent agreement. “I mean what is Mexican night without going to La Potosina and eating all the chips, salsa and queso we want.” Kara’s shoulders shake with silent laughter as their children try to manipulate Lena into caving to their wishes.

Lena could kill Kara for this. How one woman can be such a disaster in the kitchen, she’ll never know, but Kara’s lack of skill has caused their children to become dependent on eating out regularly. “My answer is still no and that’s final.” There’s a collective sigh as their shoulders slump. “It’ll be great. Maybe we can go to this La Pot the night before we go back to the city.” If she can’t influence Kara to eat better than she will at least have her children eating healthier. She won’t even look at bank statements for the last six months, afraid to see how much her family spent on takeout. She wants to compromise though, their disappointed faces pained her. Was this how all parents felt when they disappointed their children?

“Yeah okay, but do we gotta eat yucky veggies?” Liam peers up at her with his bright green eyes.

Kara snorts and Lena elbows her for encouraging this. “Yes,” these children will eat vegetables if it’s the last thing she does. “They can taste good. Your mom might be lacking in developed taste buds, but I promise it won’t be gross.”

She ignores Kara's indignant 'hey'.

“I guess,” he shrugs.

“Let’s enjoy the pizza before mama barely lets us eat out,” Orla kicks up some sand. Her sisters nod empathetically.

“Exactly how often do you guys eat out?”

“Every—“ Kara smothers Eilís’ words with her hand, muffling her answer, but not before Lena receives her answer.

“Color me surprised.”

“Lena,” Kara whines. “It wasn’t every night. My mom cooked for us on occasion and stored meals in the freezer. It was just most nights.”

Lena scoffs. “As if that’s any better, I’ll be taking care of all the meals from now on.” Someone has to be the adult.

“Okay,” Kara sighs as they reach the back gate of their property. “We can go to the store after lunch.” She knows Lena won't back down from this and it's better to simply give in to her.

“That’s works for me,” she chirps. The kids play in the backyard until the pizza arrives and then they sit down as a family for their first meal together in months. Lena has never had a more enjoyable and entertaining lunch in her life. The kids are rambunctious, goofy, and far too endearing as they regale Lena with story after story of their antics. Some of the stories even feature Lena.

Sitting opposite of Kara, she realizes that she really does want this life. There are kinks to work out and conversations to be had—a family was something she didn’t know she needed until now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost cried because I thought I lost the version with the last 2k or so words, but thank god for iClouds.  
> You can follow me on [ _tumblr_.](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com) And if you're interested in listening to the song, here's the version I listened to on [ _youtube_.](https://youtu.be/uMWSMGidJ7g)


	11. i'll use my lips, i'll use my arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for a panic attack and mentions of trauma

Kara closes her eyes, extends her senses beyond her surroundings—a smile touches her lips when she hears the roar of the waves, the morning breeze tickling her face, everything performing their familiar song and dance. She is swept up in her memories, of the six months she took refuge in her sleepy hometown, finding solace in the place that she first called home on earth.

The wind rushes in her ears, reminding her she is here and to live in the present and look forward to the future with hope. Hope was such an innocuous word. For so long, life without Lena was bleak and empty, and the days blended together. When she first arrived on earth as a pre-pubescent girl, who didn’t speak the language, she found hope impossible to conjure. The hope for the survival of her family legacy faded when she saw how her cousin embraced his life on earth, responded to a different name, and was far removed from the infant she held hours after his birth.

Then slowly as her relationship with her adoptive family shifted and the misery hovering over her like a dark cloud dissipated, she was left with hope for the future. She was still alive and that was something. She and her cousin survived. She realized home wasn’t a place, more of a feeling that could be found in a lot of places.

The rustle of her hair elicits a laugh to bubble up from her throat and something loosens in her chest, flying free like a bird in spring. Opening her eyes, she admires the clear blue of the sky, the blue-green of the ocean as the water falls and rises in gentle swells, and falls in love all over again with the burnished golds, oranges, and reds adorning the trees, hanging on a little longer, battling against the cold until it was time to let go and start the cycle all over again.

Kara thinks this is the rebirth of another cycle for her. Her mind goes back to years and years ago, the words of Cat Grant hitting heavier than ever. She has already become many different people since that day on the balcony, never realizing when it was happening, only after when she had transitioned into someone else. Cat was right, then again she usually was in her own blunt way. She is on the brink of another chapter in her endless saga, ready to finally turn the page on the last one, and to continue her story.

“Hi,” she murmurs, lifting her tea to her lips, enjoying the heat and comfort it provides.

Lena stops in the doorway. “I forgot that you’ve got impeccable hearing.”

Kara tilts her head back, her grin widening at Lena’s sleep mussed appearance. Her messy ponytail is adorable and the large pajama pants swarm her body. “Actually, I just know when you’re near.” It is something she can’t explain, just like how she first began to tune into Lena’s heartbeat. It just was.

The brunette slips outside, closing the door behind her, joining Kara on the porch swing. “What are you doing?” The curiosity is ever present in her eyes.

“Enjoying nature, it’s so quiet here. In National City, there’s always something happening at all times of day. People don’t really take the time to just be.” Though for someone like Lena—someone who never took time off—the words might not mean much to her. “I had a hard time controlling my abilities, especially the things I heard. It was overwhelming and I’m thankful my cousin decided not to raise me himself. I thought it was loud in Midvale,” she laughs, the sound surprising Lena and herself. Kara settles back, inadvertently causing them to swing. “I don’t think I could’ve handled Metropolis and there’s something soothing about this place."

“It reminds me of Ireland,” the wistfulness makes Kara’s heart clench painfully. “I liked being at boarding school and getting away from Metropolis.” Kara pushes the why’s away, knowing all too well why Lena preferred the distance from her dysfunctional family.

“So it was like your safe place?”

Her forehead crinkles and her eyes burn greener. “Maybe not those exact words, but it wasn’t the stifling, oppressive atmosphere of my childhood home. So it was something,” she says, fingers tapping without a rhythm on her thigh.

“I always come back to Midvale when I’m lost. This is where I took Alex after she ended things with Maggie. She didn’t even care about my driving.” Midvale helped Alex make the initial step towards healing, giving her a chance to escape the emptiness of her apartment.

“What’s wrong with your driving?”

Kara giggles freely at the intense alarm in Lena’s voice, the years disappearing from her face as she revels in her joy. “Nothing,” she says, averting her eyes at the obvious lie.

“Kara,” her tone is both amused and sharp as she levels Kara with one of her signature _looks_. The raised brow breaks her. How Lena does it, she hasn’t discovered in nearly fifteen years.

Her shoulders fall as she turns to Lena with an aggrieved sigh. “Fine, you mostly slept and you don’t remember all the other times, but usually you make fun of my driving. I’m a good driver,” she protests when she sees Lena narrow her eyes. “I am. Alex said she didn’t care if she had died when we were coming up, but refused to allow me to drive us home.” She crosses her arms with a pout. Those animals always came out of nowhere, it wasn’t her fault.

Lena’s lips twitch, seconds later her shoulders start shaking, and Kara shoves her playfully as Lena’s laughter rings through the air. The richness surprises her in its’ genuineness. She almost forgot what it sounded like. “Remind me to do all the driving in the future,” her lips tug into a soft grin.

“Ha ha,” Kara pokes out her tongue, accustomed to the mocking of her driving abilities. Alex laughed after she failed her driving test twice, applauding her when she was successful on the third attempt. “I don’t have to hide when I’m here. People keep my secret. They treat me like I’m a regular person and—” she sucks in her bottom lip and her eyesight blurs with the threat of a new batch of tears. She reigns them in to stop herself from freaking Lena out with her overabundance of feelings. They are a different Lena and Kara, not quite them, but something else entirely. She refuses to fixate on their current situation in Lena’s company. If it is undoubtedly confusing for Kara, who at least has all of her memories intact, it is difficult to imagine what is happening in Lena’s head. The last thing she wants is for Lena to pity her.

A warm touch startles her out of her reverie, and she looks up to find Lena’s gaze fixed on her, holding far more sympathy than she expects. “I am sorry. I’m not entirely there yet for forgiving you for all the lies, but I’m sorry if I made you feel like you were no longer you.”

Kara grins softly, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she reaches with her free hand to squeeze Lena’s. “You don’t have to apologize to me. You didn’t. I— I won’t lie and say that it didn’t hurt sometimes when I was more Supergirl to you than Kara, but I understand it. I deserved it.” She gets it. At the time, she was stuck on her own feelings, adamantly opposed to really hearing Lena explain herself. But she remembers how she iced out Alex after she found out the truth about her killing Astra. She cut her out for a time, unable to stomach the sight of her sister because her mind was hyper fixated on it. All she saw when she closed her eyes was her sister killing her favorite aunt. There is no forgiving it. It just is and she had to learn how to live with it.

Lena slides her hand from under Kara’s, bringing her knees up to her chest, toes hanging off the edge of the swing. Her face is blank while her eyes belie her lack of expression. They say a million different things and nothing at all. It would be easy to reach out to her and to reassure her against whatever plagues her mind, but things between them are fragile, prone to breakage at any moment. Even the most innocent of touches between them conveyed something far deeper than they were willing to admit or discuss, neither wanted to interrupt the status quo, instead the ebullient nature of their friendship reached a crucial point and they fell apart. There was no simple fix—her apologies dressed in pretty words weren’t enough for the boundaries she crossed and the ways she kept hurting Lena.

She sweeps back some of her tousled hair as she tries to gain control of her conflicting emotions and thoughts. Being with Lena will always affect her, it has never not, even in the beginning when they were barely passed the acquaintance stage. There was something about the other woman that called to her, attracted her, and ultimately compelled her to pursue a friendship with her. Though she supposes that word never fully encapsulated what they meant to each other. Because at the end of the day, the lengths they went through to protect one another surpassed the barriers of friendship, broaching territory they tried not to cross for fear of what it would cost.

“I hope you don’t mind, but Alex and Sam are going to help with the moving back to the city. Sam is going to drive my car with the kids into the city. I’ve got a session with my therapist in two hours,” there’s a wry twist to her lips. In the beginning, therapy was pointless to her, at least not until she had a complete meltdown over something minor at work, losing all of her composure in front of her coworkers as she cried and cried and cried. She had no explanation for the quick burst of emotion or the endless tears.

“I figured you could decide who you want to spend the ride with on your own.” She has placed Lena in an awkward situation by removing herself entirely from the equation, however Kara needs to talk to someone, or she’ll burst like an oversaturated water balloon from everything she is holding in. All of her emotions are bubbling to the surface the longer things go on as they are, weighing heavily on her as she lays in bed at night, contemplating how she got there, and her feelings, there to remind her things are far from 'normal’. There is no going back to six months ago. She may have paused her life for a time and that of her children’s; the rest of the world kept going in their absence, never stopping, and she can’t pretend it did.

Lena looks away, body radiating with anxiety over her the options presented to her, mentally calculating which one will leave her intact. Her muscles are tightly coiled with her shoulders hunched as if she’s expecting Kara to yell at her for picking the wrong choice. Kara has to close her eyes, to hide from the frightened, timid version of her wife, the Lena whose brother remains in her head, whispering and casting doubt on everything and everyone.

Kara wants to wrap her up in a hug and never let go, to keep the world from further hurting Lena. She knows there is nothing she can do to stop the inevitable and protect her from what is to come. Lena has to reclaim her life at some point. Their week in Midvale was a reprieve from the reality that awaits them upon their return to National City, to the announcement that Lena did survive the crash, to her reclaiming her family’s company, and ultimately to Lena deciding what she wants. Kara will be there for it all, helping however she can, and she will wait patiently for Lena to decide one way or another. She won’t pressure her to choose them. It isn’t right or fair to Lena for her to force her desires. 

“Your therapist is going to call you this afternoon to arrange a _first_ meeting. I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries or anything by making the call, but I figured you could use an outside party to talk to about what’s happening. You shouldn’t have to suppress your feelings for my sake.”

Kara saw the hesitance in Lena’s every action, how she tossed her words through her head several times before speaking, her reluctance to initiate physical contact with any of the five other people in the house. She soaked up whatever affection the children bestowed on her, eyes drifting shut in bliss as the children wrapped her up in their hugs or planted kisses on her cheeks or lips. For them, Lena was their mom. It was all semantics and Lena never discouraged them from seeking her out for a cuddle or reassurance.

Lena blinks. “I can’t say I’m too bothered. I— yeah talking to someone would help me sort out my head,” she says, turning her gaze to the calm and gentle sea. Kara wishes her thoughts were transparent, but this Lena isn’t an open book to her. “A lot of things are confusing. I barely know who I am,” Kara’s chest tightens at the words. She’s never heard Lena sound so lost in her life, not even when she discovered she was a Luthor. Her heart sinks as Lena’s face shutters with heavy emotions, sadness prevailing.

Kara decides to do away with the established boundaries to give Lena an ounce of the comfort she’s brought to Kara’s life. She slides across the swing until their thighs are brushing and their shoulders press together. With a gentle touch, she grasps Lena’s hand in her own, thumb tenderly stroking the lines of her hand before tangling their fingers together. “You’re Lena Luthor. That will hold true no matter what,” she finds herself saying. “You made me a kryptonite suit, in two different universes. You care about people even when you’ve been burned. You’re incredibly generous, donating so much money to charities and volunteering your time to help those in need. So you’re missing some of the details that doesn’t suddenly change who you are, who you’ve always been here,” she places their joint hands over Lena’s heart.

Lena’s pulse quickens as their eyes meet. Something sits heavy between them, charging the moment, Kara holds her breath. “Why me? I’m serious.” The question is unexpected as is Lena tucking her head into Kara’s neck. “Why don’t you give up and cut your losses?”

Kara pauses. There is an answer prepared. Despite ten years, Lena’s insecurities often reared their ugly heads and Kara attempted her best to soothe the old scars left by her upbringing, but there are things her words and actions of love can’t repair. The damage inflicted on her wife left their mark, and all she can do is show Lena the love she was denied by her family.

“You aren’t disposable. I wish you would dispel the notion you are, but maybe that’ll always be there.” Kara lays her head on top of Lena’s, inhaling the flowery scent of her shampoo. “But I could always ask you the same. I mean you’re a freaking billionaire and you wanted to hang out with a legit nobody.” She knows her words are bound to garner a reaction from Lena. “I mean I went on a rampage across National City my first year as Supergirl,” she adds self-deprecatingly. She shivers remembering the effect red K had on her and pulled out some of her worst thoughts, encouraging her to act on her worst impulses.

Lena runs her thumb over Kara’s knuckle. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“It was me,” she says forcefully. It may have removed her inhibitions, but those thoughts in her head were her own. “I’ve been infected twice since that time and it’s always more horrible than the last. Who would want someone who can be affected by versions of a rock from their planet?”

Instead of using her words, Lena lifts up her head, pressing her lips lightly to Kara’s. Her other hand reaches up to cradle her jaw, fingers delicately trailing across her skin. She pulls back shyly, brows slightly furrowed, eyes an inky green before she dives back in, kissing with more force as if to tell Kara, she would choose her. Kara’s eyes flutter as her body falls lax under Lena’s spell. Lena slides into Kara’s lap, increasing the pressure and intensity of the kiss. Kara firmly grasps her hips, holding them in place, mind barely functioning enough to keep this from getting out of control.

Lena’s tongue grazes her bottom lip, sliding swiftly across the seal of her lips. Her mouth falls open with a gasped moan, Lena swallows with her mouth. Her tongue darts in, using Kara’s shock to her advantage as she explores the depths of her mouth. Her tongue is everywhere and it makes Kara’s head dizzy with want. She had forgotten this feeling. Desire licks up her spine and fire pools low in her belly, the flames refusing to be smothered as Lena presses further into her.

She can taste the bitterness from Lena’s coffee and the mint of her toothpaste. Lena is everywhere as the vanilla of her perfume overwhelms all of Kara’s senses. She can barely remember why this is a bad idea and why she should put a stop to it.

Lena wrenches her mouth away, chest heaving as she tries to regain her breath. The staccato of her heart nearly brings a grin to Kara’s face. Her eyes are dark, ringed with a thin grey circle. She stares at Kara, thumbs tenderly stroking her cheeks. Her mouth is pinker and lips glossy from Kara’s own mouth. She feels the wetness coating her own lips. Lena tucks a strand of loose hair behind Kara’s ear. Kara’s cheeks grow darker from the innocent touch.

It is fascinating how two people who spent an awfully long time dancing around each other can’t stop orbiting one another. The gravitational pull is too hard to resist, nor has she ever tried to move out of Lena’s reach.

Kara wants to freeze the moment, hold them in it a little longer like a picture forever captures a single moment, preserving it forever.

She wants a lot of things that she can’t have. She feels as if she’s taking advantage of Lena’s disadvantaged state. “Kara,” she breathes, playing with the hair at the nape of her neck. “Stop thinking and just feel.” Kara has a list compiled of a million reasons why this is a bad idea, but she pushes them aside as Lena dips her head down for another kiss.

Kara is the one to part Lena’s lips, brushing past the barrier of her lips to tangle their tongues together. She licks into her mouth, traces over the familiar landmarks, so to not forget them. The tiny squeaks Lena emits spurs her on, the sounds adorable and filthy at the same time. They move languidly, enjoying the rhythm their mouths set as something settles into place.

The keys to her heart click in place. Wetness pools on her cheeks, and she doesn’t register she’s crying until Lena is kissing away her tears. She peppers her face with tiny kisses, fingers running through her tangled waves.

Kara tugs Lena down bringing their mouths back together. It is slower, some of the heat dissipates, but the passion is present. Lena captures her bottom lip, sucking and biting. She flattens her tongue against it, the motion is slow and tantalising, driving Kara slowly mad. She loses herself in the taste and feel of Lena.

Somewhere in all of this, her hands have slipped under Lena’s hoodie, caressing the smooth expanse of her back. Her skin is warm and soft. Lena hums happily into their kiss, and it hits Kara as Lena slides her tongue back in, deepening the kiss, that the messiness and the lack of lines that have always defined their relationship still exist in their new dynamic. Lena feels it too as she melts into Kara’s touch.

Like she mapped the contours of her mouth minutes ago, her hands map Lena’s lower back, imprinting the memory of her coiling muscles to memory.

Lena drags her mouth down Kara’s jaw, trailing lightly over her neck in a series of open-mouthed, wet kisses that leave Kara breathless. She tilts her head back providing Lena better access. She nips playfully at the skin, and she shivers under her ministrations. Her body is covered with a blanket of bare desire. She craves Lena—her kisses and her touch—aching to feel her all over. Though she knows neither of them are ready for that step.

She kisses slow and soft, tender in her approach. She finds Kara’s pulse line and sucks on it roughly. Kara’s ragged breathing reaches her own ears as her hips cant into Lena’s, slotting perfectly together. And wow things are escalating faster than her brain can process as Lena pushes aside the material of Kara’s hoodie to place an open-mouth kiss at the juncture where her shoulder and neck meet.

For someone who had no memories of them being together like this, her tactile memory is apparently still there as she draws out a string of moans from Kara. “Lena,” her voice is unsteady as Lena sucks harder, swirling her tongue across Kara’s flushed skin.

Kara moves her thumbs in slow circles across Lena’s back. She keeps her feet firmly planted to keep the swing from moving and ejecting them. Kara starts to squirm as Lena grows bolder, her hands moving under the front of Kara’s hoodie, palms moving knowingly over her skin. She shivers at the cool touch. “Lena,” she says breathily with far less composure than she likes. “Baby,” she groans as Lena slides her hands up Kara’s sides. “We’ve got to stop.” Her body screams in protest, disagreeing immediately with it, but her mind promises it is the right thing to do. If they continue as they are, they will regret it.

Lena has admitted to feeling lost and not like herself. Adding sex to the mix will only complicate everything and truth be told, while she enjoys the image of Lena writhing in pleasure beneath her, she isn’t ready to go back to how things were.

Her emotions are teetering on the brink of sanity. She has to stop it, to slow things down. Their pace once again is too quick for them.

Kara’s head is spinning, her body coming down from the high of her favorite drug, Lena.

Lena isn’t any better off than her. She stays in Kara’s lap, though she keeps her hands to herself. Lena manages to keep her cool instead of the panic that caused her to flee the first time they had sex. Hell a week ago, Kara’s own panic flooded her system and she quickly put space between her and Lena.

“Are we going to talk about this?” Lena gestures between them, her eyes piercing Kara’s.

Kara shrugs impassively. The ball is in Lena’s court. She will follow her lead.

Lena growls, cupping Kara’s jaw and turning her head towards hers. “Look,” she says, irritation creeping into her voice. “This isn’t easy for me. Talking is my least favourite thing to do, but for you,” her face and voice soften, the green of her irises lightens to the softest green. “I would do anything. So tell me, please, I need to know what you’re thinking because my head is a mess.”

Kara’s isn’t any clearer. Her thoughts are jumbled and remain mostly obscured by the haze of her uncontrollable hunger for all things Lena.

“Trust me, mine isn’t doing any better,” she admits. “I had resigned myself to being alone and before you say something absurd like I’ve got a lot to offer, there’s no one else that I’ve wanted like you.” Lena’s breath hitches, she hears the catch in her throat. “I’m not upset we kissed, but I do think we have to establish some sort of boundaries. I feel like I’m taking advantage of your vulnerable state.”

Lena places two fingers over her lips. “Shh… I don’t think that at all. I’m the one who kissed you, remember?” She teases with an easy smile and a fond shake of her head. “I’ve wanted to do that for an incredibly long time. Last week caught me off guard, but there was a rightness to it.” She plays with the ends of Kara’s hair, twirling the strands. “You are one of the strongest people I know. Everyone has their own kryptonite. Yours happens to be actual kryptonite, but that doesn’t make it your fault.”

“Do you choose to fall under the effects of red k?”

“Well… _no_ ,” why would she? She is the worst version of herself and hurts those closest to her, whether intentional or not. “But,” she is quick to add, “I can’t say that it’s not me. I won’t excuse it away like that. That would be a cop out. Part of me, the darker part at any rate, has thought those things.”

“Kara,” Lena sighs. “That’s normal. Lots of people have thoughts that are cruel and callous.”

She huffs angrily. “They don’t act on them.”

“Neither do you,” she counters.

Kara rolls her eyes. Lena refuses to understand. Kara is capable of so much destruction.

“Tell me this,” Lena murmurs, keeping her gaze on Kara. “If it weren’t for the influence of another substance, would you do those things?”

“Well I can’t know that.”

“I know it. The answer is no.” Her tone brokers no room for an argument. “You aren’t perfect, far from it,” she snorts. “But there’s no such thing. Everyone is capable of doing bad and good stuff.”

“But I think part of me enjoys it,” her voice is small and unsure.

“Yeah and that’s normal too. It’s like when you get pleasure from getting revenge. I humiliated a classmate in elementary school. I felt satisfaction from cutting her down. The guilt came later, _much later._ In that moment, I wanted that girl to feel a modicum of what I felt, but later I was ashamed at what I was willing to do.” Her fingers scratch lightly at Kara’s neck. Kara thinks the action is more for Lena’s comfort than her own. “It’s natural and you’re a person. Supergirl to some might seem above the rest of us, but knowing it’s you, I can see some things differently.”

“Really?” Kara draws her brows together. She never forgot Lena informing her she had a god complex.

“Yeah, you carry so much on your shoulders. I don’t know why you feel the need to shoulder everyone else’s burdens.”

“You and my therapist,” she jokes. “She thinks it stems from my childhood trauma. I couldn’t help my planet, so I do what I can to help everyone.”

“So your therapist knows?”

“Yeah and it’s such a relief. I can’t imagine what therapy would be like if she didn’t. She’s an alien herself. She immigrated for very different reasons to mine.” She rearranges Lena on her lap, adjusting her so that she sits sideways and her head rests under Kara’s chin. “She’ll have a field day with all of this.”

Pressley is bound to pick up on the anxious energy she is exuding. Her empathic abilities lend her somewhat of an advantage when it comes to her patients. She has called Kara out every time she attempted to lie or understate her feelings.

“Do you like therapy?”

“Does anyone?” Kara realized therapy wasn’t something she had to like to discover its’ benefits. “If you’re asking if it’s helped then yes. I go more frequently than you do even all these years later. You go maybe three or four times year but I probably visit monthly.” All of the years of repressing her trauma had done her no favors. It nearly almost destroyed her. “I hated going in the beginning but Alex and my moms strong armed me into it. It was affecting my abilities and at first, I was resistant, very uncooperative with the whole thing.”

“What changed?”

“It had been about a month after we… you _know_ ,” she says shyly, a rosy pink dusts her cheeks. “Something at work triggered me. There was an article about you in Metropolis speculating about you relocating and I sort of lost it.” Lena winces. “We hadn’t talked about that night and then you were gone. I got the message.”

* * *

_She stares at the ceiling, focused on counting the tiles instead of talking. Dr. Jacobs asked a question, but she elects to ignore it and pretend as if she heard nothing._

_“Kara,” she admonishes. She silently curses the woman’s accursed empathetic abilities. “Why did seeing the article upset you?” She repeats as if she didn’t know full well Kara heard her clearly the first time. If she can hear someone whisper across a room, she can hear someone speaking at an acceptable vocal pitch._

_She wets her lips. “It wasn’t supposed to change anything.” It fails to answer her doctor’s question, but all she can think about is the night where they crossed the line. “I mean we hadn’t talked about it or anything, we weren’t even planning to meet up that night.” Though she suspects Cat knew Lena was going to be there that night. She wouldn’t put it past the woman to know something like that and to have Kara and Lena’s paths intercept._

_Apparently it was obvious to everyone except her that what she and Lena shared transcended the realm of friendship. How could she be so fucking oblivious for years? Then again, Lena was convinced nothing romantic would exist between them._

_“Kara,” she sets aside her notebook, determined to focus on her patient. “You’ve told me that you have limited experience with relationships, correct?”_

_“Yes,” she answers succinctly._

_“You’ve given me an avid description of the type of relationship you and Lena have had and let me tell you, it was bound to fall apart.”_

_Kara’s mouth falls open and she’s sitting up instantly, ready to defend their friendship to this quack. What does she know about what exists between Kara and Lena?_

_“You’re angry.” Kara wants to sarcastically reply ‘what gave her that idea?’ She bites her tongue. “Do you want to know why?” Kara grudgingly nods. “You and Lena had a friendship built on secrets, not just yours but hers. You protected yourselves, but remained fiercely protective of one another at the same time. You once interrupted what essentially amounted to a date and before you cut in with you suspected that her ex was into something shady, you could’ve waited until it was over. Instead you tracked her down and inserted yourself into the middle. Tell me, what about that sounds like a casual friendship?”_

_Now that it’s been pointed out, she can read the romantic undertones of her past actions. She could’ve waited, but she chose to strike in the middle of the date. Something about Lena and Jack rubbed her the wrong way. At the time, she would have claimed she was worried for Lena’s safety, but the hidden truth is much different. She hated the idea of Lena with someone who could easily sweep her off her feet and provide everything Kara could not. Lena had admitted to loving him deeply and needing Kara by her side to keep her from losing her head._

_“You and Lena basically dated without dating for four years, and never once in that time did you say the words ‘I’m Supergirl’ to her. Instead you lied and at times manipulated her so that she questioned her own perceptions of events. You flew her in your civilian clothing and when she questioned you about her dream with you flying, you denied it.”_

_Kara drops her head and ignores the burning in her eyes. It isn’t her heat vision. “I didn’t mean to,” her voice trembles as she meets her therapist’s gaze with her glassy one. “It was never my intention to make her question herself.”_

_“While intention does matter, with your words and actions, you hurt her. Four years were spent with you telling her how much she mattered to you. You shared countless lunches and dinners together. You regularly met for brunch. She stayed over at your apartment. You borrowed clothes. You invited her to spend time with your friends. I’m not saying it is all your fault because it takes two to create a relationship like this.”_

_If that is supposed to be uplifting, it has the opposite effect._

_“You have stated some of the many reasons why you kept it from her, the primary reason being that you knew she would be angry at you for lying.” Kara opens her mouth, shutting it when Dr. Jacobs levels her with a look. “While I’m sure your fear of losing someone who treated you as if you were the hero and not your alter played a significant role, I think it is the former that kept you from being honest.”_

_Kara’s eyes slide shut when the gravity of it all hits her like a brick building. “I’m an awful person,” she cries, rubbing her teary, red rimmed eyes. “How could I do that to her?” She buries her face in her hands, a full body shudder overcomes her. “No wonder she left. Who would want someone like that?” She chokes out through the force of her sobs._

_For years, she struggled with her reticence to bring Lena in on her secret. She created a list of reasons to justify her treatment. She was the worst sort of hypocrite, expecting Lena to unburden herself and reveal all of her secrets, when she wasn’t willing to do the same. Lena warned her on numerous occasions about her stance on liars and those who betrayed her. If she goes back, she can pinpoint the exact moment when Lena was no longer her Lena. It was their last game night all together before she won the Pulitzer— everyone’s schedules never quite aligning before then. There was a tightness in Lena’s face and something cold buried in her eyes that chilled Kara, but before she had a chance to explore it deeper, there was her Lena with her beautiful smile and holding up the booze._

_She ignored the strange feeling residing in her chest, urging her to talk to Lena because something was wrong._

_“I guess I deserve to be ghosted.” If this is the worst and the end of Lena’s anger directed at her, then she can handle it. Sure, the idea of living the rest of her life without the brunette makes her heart ache, but she will endure the pain. She can live with pain. She has before and she can again. “She’s probably confused about me and my intentions. I mean one day, it’s we are friends and then I’m pacing outside of a club bathroom muttering about my love for her, and then we were in my apartment.”_

_“Kara, stop fixating on her, this is your therapy session. You’ve got to start putting yourself first. It’s not selfish. I promise you.”_

_It goes against everything that’s been ingrained in her. Her parents’ voices echo in her ears, coaxing promises out of her to take care of her cousin. The news flashes while she’s on a date and all she can see is her sister and she has to save her. Her aunt is there and maybe just maybe she can convince her to alter her course of action. Everyone is brainwashed and she refuses to run from Non. She’s going to save her city and her cousin. On and on, time after time, she put the needs of others before own, but that’s what heroes do, right?_

_She furrows her brows, her face quizzical._

_“I’m not saying it’s wrong you care about her. I think for the time being that you’ve got to think of yourself first. You can’t expect anyone else to do so if you don’t do it.”_

_It is a foreign concept to her. How does she begin to put herself first?_

_“Take a deep breath, breathe with me now, in… out.”_

_Her insides ache and she’s running out of the office to the nearest restroom to empty the contents of her stomach. She purges everything and continues to heave, despite the emptiness in her stomach. Her insides ache but her body wasn’t done._

_With a shuddering, gasping breath she pulls away, her hand connecting with the flusher, making everything disappear. The lingering putrid smell of vomit is a reminder of what happened. It clings to her._

_She slumps against the cool tile wall, head leaning at an awkward angle._

_She starts to cry, mostly sniffles and whimpers until she starts bawling. The tears are a constant and she can’t stop._

_Dr. Jacobs enters the unlocked space, seating herself at a distance._

_Kara gasps for breath, lungs constricting painfully as she sucks in air. Everything around her blurs and she panics, crying harder. Blood rushes in her ears, accompanied by a distinct_ **_thump, thump, thump_ ** _that she realizes is her own heart beating rapidly in her chest. The sound echoes over and over and she can passively hear her therapist instructing her, but the words are muddled. Heat rises and sweat pours down her face as her chest rises and falls faster and faster. Her hands tremble, and the deep breath she tries to take gets caught in her throat. Instead of deep, even breaths, hers are sharp and shallow, harsh sounding rasps._

_Her heart pounds faster, harder, and erratically, working over time. Her limbs aren’t responding to any commands and she’s frozen. Her anxiety spikes. Her vision narrows and the world becomes a kaleidoscope._

_Suddenly Dr. Jacobs is there. Her voice is steady, but it is as if Kara is underwater. She can’t focus on the words being said. “In and out, in and out,” the therapist repeats like a mantra. “Focus on your surroundings, find something to fixate on.”_

_Kara opens her ears, her heart jolting when she picks up the cadence of Lena’s heart. It means she’s in the city and Kara hones in on it. She allows it to soothe her. Slowly, she comes back to herself. Her senses return to her. Her breaths even out. Her vision clears. Her body cools and the shaking is gone. She inhales and exhales._

_It has been years since she found herself on the wrong end of a panic attack._

_“Good Kara,” the doctor helps her stand, smiling softly at her. She hands over a bottle of water and gives her some privacy._

_She walks over on shaky legs to the sink to rinse her mouth. She wipes away her tears and smooths out her hair. Dark circles line her puffy eyes and the pallor of her skin is frightening. The chalky white color concerns her and she’s thankful for her leave from work. Perhaps some time basking in the sun will do her wonders. It’ll certainly improve her spirits._

_Dr. Jacobs concludes their session when she returns, promising they’ll continue where they left off at their next one, but recommends Kara take some time for herself. “I’ll see you Thursday,” she shakes her hand at the door._

_Kara nods. “I’ll be here.”_

* * *

“Therapy was like a revelation for me. I needed it.” She really did. That session confirmed it. She thought she was over her past and the _Lena_ thing.

Lena’s fingers halt their scratching. “And I thought I was the one with issues in this relationship.” Kara appreciates her trying to lighten their conversation.

“I think we are all a little messed up, some of us are just more fucked up than others.”

“I have to agree with that.”

“Mama! Jeju!”

There’s a shared smile between them as they separate. Duty calls. “I think I’ll ride with Alex. If you’re going to therapy, it couldn’t hurt for me to get out some feelings of my own.”

Kara blinks a few times. She thought Lena would choose to ride with Sam and the kids. It made sense, then again Lena has never done what Kara thought she would. She constantly surprised her. “If you’re sure,” she opens the door.

“Yeah, I am,” she breathes, entering the house.

The kids clamber on Lena when they spot her, exhaling in relief that she’s there. “Where were you mama?”

“Why were you outside?”

“I’m hungry!”

“Can we have french toast?”

The cacophony of all their questions directed at Lena brings a smile to Kara’s face. She leans against the counter, revelling in the magic of their family, that they’ve managed to get to this point at all. The odds were stacked against them. “Will you be okay on your own?”

Kara has to finish a few of the household tasks before they close the house up. Lena waves her off, so Kara leaves her to it. She checks the kids have packed their things, then she goes to lock all the windows. She tidies all of the rooms and the bathrooms. After breakfast, she’ll clear out the fridge and the pantry. Lena will lock up the actual house. Kara has given her a copy of the key for both houses.

When she rejoins her family, there’s french toast, eggs, and bacon. She makes a grabby motion when she sees the bacon. Lena often bought the fake kind, much to the displeasure of her family members, and they all sucked it up with their miserable smiles and endless pouting.

“Aunt Sam says we can even stop by the sports store. _Someone_ did get our basketball flattened,” E directs a glare at her brother.

Liam smiles sheepishly, shovelling eggs into his mouth.

“I gotta get new basketball shoes anyway. The season starts soon and my old ones are too small,” Oona has a more dainty approach to eating compared to her brother.

“I have to get new dance shoes,” Orla inputs, scooping a helping of fruit onto her plate. “My ballet slippers keep pinching my toes and I can barely get my feet into my tap shoes. And all of my dance wear is too tight.”

“Your aunts have promised to help you take care of all that.”

“Are oo ‘in wit us ma?” Liam turns to Lena with his mouth full.

She grimaces as Kara shoots her an amused look. She will have to grow used to that. They have tried for the last six years to get Liam to stop talking with food in his mouth. “What was that?”

He finishes chewing, swallowing loudly, following it up with the loud slurping of his juice. His sisters giggle and snort at his antics. “Are you going to come with us mama?” His face is sweet and innocent as he juts out his bottom lip.

Kara wonders if Lena recognises it as the manipulation it is. Then again, she could never deny their baby boy. He was their last baby. Actually she rarely denied any of their children. They weren’t spoiled though. Lena ran a tight ship and there were no housekeepers to pick up after their children. If they wanted a new toy, then they had to donate one.

“You want me there?” Kara suppresses a sigh that Lena struggles to believe their children would want her around. Four heads bob in synchronicity. “Sure then,” her grin is hesitant.

“Awesome sauce!” Orla pumps her fist. She turns to Oona. “Remember last year when mama was yelling at the mall security because we couldn’t find L?” She cackles in delight. “He had crawled under a rack of clothes and fell asleep.”

Kara broke her phone when she received the call about her missing son. She told Lena she’d be there as soon as possible and ended up crushing her phone. She was crippled with fear, trying to catalog any enemies who could kidnap their son, mind jumping to the worst case scenarios. It was that incident that prompted Lena to finish the watches.

Lena looks up with wide, terror filled eyes. Kara frowns at her daughter. “Stop that,” she admonishes. “You’re going to scare your mom. You will stick by her side or your aunts when you’re at the mall.” She hates to get firm with them, but she wants to impress upon them the danger of walking away. “Last year, Liam nearly scared your mom and I to death with his disappearing act. That was one of the scariest moments of my life and we don’t need a repeat of it.”

“Sorry,” Orla apologizes to Lena. Her delivery is sincere and she lowers her eyes. “We will be good mama. You can even hold my hand.”

It causes a collective giggle to go around the table as it had become a family joke. The twins offering to hold Lena’s hand never fails to make any of them laugh. “Are you sure you’re not too cool to be seen with me?”

Mischief dances in Orla’s blue orbs. “I mean I am,” she flips her mass of curls over her shoulders. “But,” she drags out the syllables, “I guess if you really need it, we can hold hands.”

E and O fall over each other laughing at their sister. “Yeah, we can all hold hands. We wouldn’t want you to think we are too grown up.”

Lena narrows her eyes at Oona. “I suppose I could always just yell out the window at school drop off how much I love you.”

“You wouldn’t!” She exclaims, doubt creeping into her voice--her eyes dart to Kara who shrugs at her.

Lena smirks. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Touché,” Oona concedes. She knows when she's been outplayed and she would rather not risk the humiliation.

“Hah!”

“Oh shut up,” Oona kicks her younger sister in the shin.

“Ow,” Orla retaliates by throwing a handful of eggs at her sister.

Her aim is a little off and it splatters both twins and Kara.

“Gross!” E brushes egg out of her hair. “I’m going to get you back for that.”

Lena catches Liam’s arm before he can aim anything at his sisters. She glares at him, daring him to try. He sighs sadly and she releases his arm. “No fair,” he pouts. “Girls get to have all the fun,” he grumbles.

His sisters scoff. “Oh please _baby_ ,” E taunts him. “Mama and mommy let you get away with murder. You get out of everything.”

“Yeah like when you threw the baseball through the back window. You got like five minutes in time out, while we had to rake all the leaves and do the dishes by hand that night.”

Orla nods. “Or when he shoved that kid in his class at lunch. He just got a talk but I had to watch everyone have fun at my birthday party without me.” Kara thinks that particular punishment was quite effective if Orla is still going on about it over six months later. She doubts she’ll forget it the next time she considers raising a hand to another student.

“It wasn’t your first time fighting,” she reminds her youngest daughter. Though perhaps it is time to start upping Liam’s punishments. He is six and while he is their baby, he does understand actions have consequences. “Now everyone finish up, so we can bring everything down. Your aunts should be here within the hour.”

No words are exchanged as they finish their last meal in this house for a while. The kids handle the dishes and wiping down the table, with Orla on floor duty after her display. They head up the stairs after to get ready for the day, while Kara and Lena remove all the perishable items. Eliza said she would handle taking the cans out for them. It is one less thing for them to worry about.

“Are you nervous?” The peace they’ve had for the last week is about to be obliterated. The press will undoubtedly invade their privacy when the news hits. Lena and Sam have scheduled a press conference for three days from now. She has no plans to immediately take back control of the company, but they do need to get in front of the story before someone else does.

Lena shrugs, fiddling with the glasses as she shelves them. “I guess.”

“It’ll be okay. Just wear a hat when you go out today. No one should detect you since everyone thinks you’re dead. If you encounter any problems, you can use this.” She reveals an updated version of the watch for Lena. “Don’t let them go overboard or anything either. They’ll try to talk you into buying every little thing that catches their eye, but ninety-nine percent of the time, they don’t need it. I’ve emailed Sam their supply lists so work from that. They do need new casual clothes and we get them two new pairs of shoes. Feel free to reign them in if they start to get rowdy.”

“I’ll try,” she murmurs.

Kara smiles at her. “You’ll be fine. I believe in you.” Lena’s head snaps up, those green eyes intently focused on her. “Oh Sam and Alex are here, can you check on the kids, while I greet them?”

“Yeah,” she grins. “Thanks Kara.”

“For what?”

“Just thanks.” She departs the kitchen and Kara can hear her puttering around upstairs. So maybe things are finally looking up for their family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 4:30 a.m. and I'm awake. But it's all good, I finally finished this chapter. I hope you guys enjoyed! Let me know what you think.
> 
> You can follow me on [ _tumblr_.](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)


	12. just before the walls come down

“Ugh mama, it’s fine,” Orla whines, batting away Lena’s hands as she adjusts the ribbon tied in her daughter’s hair. Lena glares at her and Orla backs down with a muttered, “no fair, you’re a cheater.”

Eilís and Oona snicker from the driveway, while Liam collects a few flowers from the garden. He wants to add them to his collection of pressed flowers. “Goodbye Japanese Anemone and my sweet Asters. Oh my pretty Heliopsis, I’ll miss you.” He brushes his hands through the flowers, eyes closed, and inhales loudly, chest puffing. Lena thinks he is absolutely adorable as he says all of his goodbyes to his garden. “Little violets, you are so pretty and purple.”

The twins help Sam load the bags into Kara’s SUV, chattering merrily to their aunt about any and every little thing. “—forgot to move the paper plate and it caught fire. It was awesome. Then she had to use her freeze breath and the whole counter was covered in ice.”

Lena hides a wince. The tales of Kara’s many disasters in the kitchen give her anxiety and she tries not to think of what could have gone wrong in her absence.

“Oh no!” Oona interjects, nudging her twin. “You didn’t tell her the best one,” she exclaims. “She was distracted and forgot to put water in the pot when she was making spaghetti. And it caught on FIRE!!!!” Her smile is enormous and her eyes are wider than normal. “But there’s also this time where the chicken was overdone and underdone at the same time. Like the outside was so crispy and then we all cut into our food to find it _pink._ ” 

Sam is holding herself up, trying her best not to laugh at Kara’s antics in the kitchens. “How the five of you managed to survive I’ll never know.”

“We’ve got every takeout place in Midvale on speed dial. There are even non-delivery places that will deliver just for us.”

Lena imagines those places took pity on Kara’s sweet blue eyes and the four starving children.

“We’re good tippers,” Eilís adds. “O liked the pizza boy. She thought he was _so_ cute, and wouldn’t let anyone answer the door.”

“Shut up,” Oona mumbles. “I didn’t like him.”

“Yeah sure,” her twin scoffs. “Then why did you write a story about him?”

“You read my notebook?” Oona screeches.

“You left it open on the desk.”

“You’re supposed to respect my privacy.”

“It was right there and I’m only human.”

“Half,” Oona cries. “You’re just nosy.”

“Okay you two.” Sam pulls them apart, an arm wrapped around each of their shoulders. “We aren’t going to have any twin drama on our way back to the city. The drive is long and you two shouldn’t be fighting anyway. E apologize to your sister for reading her stuff without her permission.”

“Sorry,” she grunts.

“And O, you can be gracious enough to accept her apology.” Sam squeezes Oona’s shoulder when the girl shows no signs of forgiving her sister.

“Yeah, I forgive you,” she says grudgingly.

“Finished,” Liam squeals, approaching Lena with his arms full of flowers.

Orla has long since fled from her mother’s reach, checking her bedroom one last time for any forgotten items. “I see that,” Lena says, kneeling to his level. “They’re very pretty.”

Liam beams at her. The smile is so very _Kara_. It amazes her to see these tiny reflections of the blonde in the children. “I growed them myself with gramma. We went to the store and she let me picked them all. I watered them and pulled the weeds.”

“That’s very impressive.”

“Thank you,” he grins shyly. “You can have this one.” He holds out a single aster, and Lena wonders if this sweet child knows the meaning of the flower he has offered her. “El,” he says.

“Star, that’s right. Asters are named for their star-like shape.”

“ _You belong with us._ ” He presses his lips to her cheek, wet and full of love. “Zehdh,” he touches her face, little fingers trail over her skin. Lena knows the meaning, Kryptonese being a skill she has retained despite the deficits with her memory. The word means belonging in the sense of one’s family, but she thinks there is more to it than that. “Rao will bless us mama, we just gotta have faith.” He leaves her there kneeling, skipping off to show his bouquet to his sisters.

Orla dashes out of the house, closing the door, and using her key to lock it. “I set the alarm.”

In her arms is a book and a doll. She rushes off to the car as Sam closes the trunk, the last of everything stuffed inside the back. The kids clamber inside and Lena approaches. Orla and Liam buckle themselves into their booster seats, while Eilís and Oona get comfy in the back. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with them?” Lena asks. She doesn’t mean to sound doubtful of Sam’s capabilities, aware she has raised a child mostly on her own, and is raising two more.

Sam smiles at her, squeezing her arm. “We’ll be fine. We’ll stop off in a few hours so I can feed the little rascals and I’ve got Kara’s credit card. So really you’re paying for it.” Lena rolls her eyes. “It’ll be fine. We’ll meet up at the mall. I get it. This is all new for you. But I promise I’d never let anything bad happen to your kids.”

“I know,” she says, lowering her defenses. All of this is foreign to her, the constant worrying, the doubts, the raging anxiety, but it feels good. She welcomes the desire to be needed and wanted. “I just- - I—they’re so…”

“Yeah they are. That’s because they’ve got great parents who love them. It’s okay to love them Lena.” Lena nods. “Not all good things are going to get snatched from you. These kids are yours forever. You won’t ever be like your family, so stop it,” Sam orders, deepening her voice. “Now, go on, I suspect your car ride is going to be significantly less pleasant than mine. But Alex is prepared, so if you need to yell or scream, you can.”

“Kids say goodbye to your mom and tell her to stop being such a worrywart.”

“Bye mama!!!” They collectively shout. Liam waves. The twins blow air kisses and Orla presses her hand against the window. Lena presses her hand back, imagining the warmth from the little girl’s tiny hand.

Surprisingly it lifts her mood, and she thinks maybe some time away will help her settle her nerves and the crippling anxiety she has whenever the children are out of her sight. It’s been a week, but Lena can’t imagine her life without them in it. They filled a hole she had no clue existed, one that was ripped open the day her mother died and she was brought into the Luthor home.

“We will be fine Lena,” Sam assures one last time before she opens the driver door and slides into the seat. “I’ll call when we stop for lunch.”

“Okay,” Lena breathes. “Thank you, Sam.”

Sam grins, flashing her thumbs up. She and the kids pull away and Lena watches them go until red lights disappear around the bend.

“Alright Lena,” Alex calls out to her. “We better get a move on.”

Lena trails over to the red headed woman, slipping into the passenger seat. She takes her time fastening herself in and shoots Alex a thin smile. The first twenty minutes they travel in silence. There’s nothing but the hum of the engine to disrupt the quiet.

Lena struggles to find the words to start her off, to express exactly what she’s felt, and how Alex’s treatment of her has affected how she perceives her former friendships. She knew Alex was prickly and cold towards her at the start, distrusting her due to the name tacked on at the end of hers, never giving her the benefit of the doubt, but calling her in when shit hit the fan. She was kept at a distance, forced to stand on the sidelines until she was deemed useful. She was an unfortunate necessity.

Alex called her in when Kara required a Kryptonite suit and Alex called her in an instant when she ran out of options. She needed her resources and abilities as an engineer and scientist. She tried a thousand times to demonstrate she wasn’t like the other members of the family, that her goal was to help and co-exist with a Super. She held no ill-will against Kara for how things turned out between their family, wanting to prove the two of them could start a new chapter. Turning the page wasn’t that easy, especially after her mom popped up, intent on eradicating aliens from the earth.

When Supergirl showed up, begging her to not side with her mother, it finally hit Lena. She was always going to be judged for sharing the Luthor last name. While her and Kara’s fates became intricately entwined from Lena’s arrival in the city, as Supergirl she wrestled with herself over believing the best in Lena and fending off the doubt.

Alex had no such reservations. In her mind, Lena was enemy number one. Alex didn’t want Lena to know Kara’s secret. That was obvious. They weren’t the closest of friends, but she thought she had shown herself to be on Kara’s side, to want the best for Supergirl.

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why? Why didn’t you trust me? Why did you tell Kara that I was the villain? Why did you keep me at a distance? Why?”

Alex purses her lips. Her eyes slyly glance in Lena’s direction for a fraction of a second. “I would say it wasn’t personal but it was,” she finally answers. “Look I’m not going to defend my actions. That’s not what you need me to do, but for so long it was me and Kara. I was the person she needed and shared everything about her life. I was tasked to protect her, so imagine my surprise when she blows all of that to hell the night she decided she was going to play hero.”

“She was trying to save your life,” Lena retorts, a touch defensive.

Alex holds up a hand. “I know. But it went against everything my parents instilled in me from the minute Kara was brought into our family. She risked her entire identity to save my life and that shouldn’t have happened. She was reckless and stubborn and too damn good for her own good. So then she finally comes out and reveals herself to the world. And a year later, she tells me she’s making friends with a _Luthor_.”

“I— and this isn’t your fault, but I flashed back to when I held my crying sister as she watched the live feed of your brother nearly killing the last of her family. She was helpless and broken. She wanted to do something, but hadn’t used her powers in years and knew it was a bad idea to expose herself.”

Lena’s stomach churns. She remembers watching the same feed, shocked and not shocked at the lengths her brother was willing to go to eliminate Superman. It wasn’t as if the murdering of hundreds with a bomb wasn’t horrible enough, but he created a suit to kill someone out of fear. Lex was scared of his own insignificance and his insecurities plagued him until he snapped. He decided he would handle the problem permanently and he wouldn’t surface for weeks at a time. Every time she saw him, he appeared more unhinged, babbling incoherently about ridding the world of Superman. She could have reported him, done something, anything, but she didn’t and they all saw how that played out.

“Luthor was symbolic of all these negative memories and feelings. I didn’t know what to make of you. Your brother appeared quite sane until the end and after everything you suffered, it would’ve been easy for you to follow right in his foot steps. You were always in the midst of danger, incredibly stubborn and foolhardy, and part of me thought you were going to get my sister killed. She would do anything to save you.”

“And then your mother popped up on our radar. She was in your orbit and I didn’t know much about the dynamics of your relationship with her. You were already kind of sketchy to me after the whole alien detection device incident. Kara relentlessly defended you whenever I expressed my doubts. She refused to believe you were guilty even when the evidence pointed to you. For me, it was clear cut. You were working with your mother and had hidden your affiliation all of that time.”

Lena scoffs. _Unbelievable_ , she thinks. She finds it difficult to believe Alex is the daughter of Eliza when they’re complete opposites in every way. Eliza is warm and open from the start, while Alex chooses to keep her distance and acts stand-offish. “You assumed a lot there. Why would I help her after all the shit she put me through?”

Alex’s grip tightens around the wheel, fingers whitening with the reduced blood flow. Lena knows she is pushing at some boundaries, but she doesn’t give a fuck. Kara had legitimate reasons to be angry at Lena, but Alex acted as if she expected the betrayal from the start. She sided with her sister, which while not unforgivable, it said a lot about how she thought of her relationship with Lena that she never reached out after Kara told her the truth.

Nia and Brainy found time to apologize for their roles in keeping the secret. She ignored James when he tried, feeling as equally betrayed by him as Kara. She added all of those little moments where his behavior was odd, or when she found out he was helping Supergirl behind her back. It filled in several blank spaces and part of her had to wonder if he was still just a little bit in love with Kara. The way he talked about her was beyond reproach, her actions justified, and turned the situation around on Lena at times. He constantly lied and it was worrisome how easily the lies crossed his lips.

There was some hesitance when Kara lied to her. She chalked it up to Kara’s personality at the time, but Kara is a terrible liar. She does wonder how that works out when there’s a secret identity involved. How did no one figure it out?

“You judged me not on my own merit, but because of my last name. I didn’t judge you for working for a questionable organization that’s imprisoned aliens. And don’t think I haven’t heard about how you used a kryptonite dart on your sister and killed her aunt, but somehow I’m the one who is always wrong. I get she’s your sister and you want to protect her, but at a point you were telling her what to do and how to think. She’s a person, a touch naive and too trusting, but she has the right to decide who her friends are.”

Alex releases a breath, slow and controlled, fingers flexing on the wheel. She pulls over at a lookout point, putting the car in park. “Let’s have it out, get out of the car. I’d rather not do it in the stuffy atmosphere of my car.”

Lena is out of the car within seconds, ready to duke it out with Alex. She’s thought about this moment since she interacted with the older woman the previous week.

“FUCK YOU FOR THINKING I WOULD DO ANYTHING TO HURT YOUR SISTER!!” That’s what hurt the most. “Yeah I didn’t react in the best way, I can admit that, but I would never try to kill her. Besides the fact that it’s not my style, I’m not my brother. Betrayal doesn’t equate to death for me. And I’m not insecure to the point where I would seriously consider physically hurting her beyond what I did. I wanted her to feel my pain. I know she did and that was for us to figure out. But don’t think I don’t know that you were constantly telling her how there was no hope for me and I was beyond help.” Alex looks away, unable to continue maintaining eye contact. Lena feels a sense of satisfaction. If anything it shows Alex knew what she did was wrong. “The more you tell someone something, the more they’ll start to believe it. And she did. She came to my balcony and there was this expression, this expression I’d never seen directed at me. I get I sided with my brother and did some other fucked up shit in the process, but you never gave me a chance. As soon as I no longer fit the picture of a _good_ Luthor, I was written off as a bad seed like the rest of my family, a poisoned apple from the poisoned tree.”

“You’re right,” she admits, gritting her teeth. “I told Kara to give up on you. In my experience, it is easier to cut out—to use your metaphor, all of the poison even if it leaves a scar. All I saw was my sister in pain. She knew she had messed up and don’t think it didn’t leave its’ mark. It goes against all the tenets of her culture to lie. Did you know that?” Lena did not. “There’s a word for it, shokh. By her very nature, she was forced to lie every single day and watching her struggle to balance her desire to tell you and protect you, it was hard for me. I did make a lot of decisions for her- - too many, if I’m being honest. I pushed her towards men and to forget you. I thought I was doing the right thing. But like you said, it’s her life.”

“You never gave me a chance.” She hates how pathetic she sounds, or how desperate she was then for Alex’s approval. Kara loves and respect her sister, and she sought her approval for everything. The main point of contention between the sisters was Kara’s friendship with Lena. She kept interfering and Lena didn’t understand the reticence. A Daxamite who was a misogynistic douche— revealed later to be a liar, a prince, and slave owner on his planet— was good enough for her sister to be around, but Lena, who strove for excellence and to better the planet, wasn’t. It made no sense to her. Granted she and Lex never had the type of sibling relationship the Danvers sisters had, but she couldn’t figure out what she had done to piss off the elder Danvers sister. “You wrote me off before I could get a word in.”

“I was jealous, _okay_?” Alex snaps at her, folding her arms.

Lena is peeved by the response. The irritable tone doesn’t bother her, it’s the admittance of jealousy. “Of what? Me?” She questions incredulously. Her eyebrows crawl up her crinkled forehead, disarmed by the knowledge that Alex was insecure of her place in Kara’s life. “Why?”

Alex huffs, turning away from Lena, staring out at the landscape. “It sounds petty, but I felt displaced in her life. She would spend her lunches with you, visit you at work, invite you to spend time with her, and she talked about you all the time. You became important to her and it felt like I was losing my sister.”

Lena softens a smidge, but she refuses to let Alex off the hook. “That doesn’t explain why you treated me like you did.”

“It doesn’t. I figured with your last name you were bound to hurt her eventually. Most people in her life have and I wanted to protect her from that.”

“Are you counting yourself in that?”

“Yes.”

“But why me specifically? Why not Mon-El?”

Alex wrinkles her nose. “Because I knew that it wouldn’t last. Sure she loved him and he loved her as much as he was capable of it anyway, but realistically they were different. They had almost nothing in common aside from being aliens and living under the same star. He was arrogant and self centered, expecting her to give up parts of herself for him. If circumstances hadn’t warranted it, they would’ve likely broken up eventually. You though,” she shakes her head, hair sweeping across her shoulders. It is an usual sight for Lena. Alex never wore her hair this long, at least as long as she’s known her. “You were the person she couldn’t let go. With Mon-El gone, you became a regular fixture in her life and she started inviting you over for game night. She tried to hide her jealousy when you got with James.”

Lena finds that hard to believe. Kara never looked at her like _that._ She would have known.

“It’s true. She didn’t know why she didn’t like you two together, but sometimes I would catch her frowning when he would slide his arm around you. At first I thought it was some residual feelings for him until I noticed her glaring at him. She hadn’t expressed those kinds of feelings to me and I wasn’t going to call her on it. It’s not my place, but I didn’t know where you stood.”

Lena was in love with her best friend, dating someone else for the convenience. She put in the minimum effort with James. She cared for him. He was great… most of the time. But there was no chemistry, no real spark between them, and they disagreed on a lot of fundamental things. In her mind, she had to push Kara out and James liked her. It wasn’t meant to last as long as it did. She just didn’t want to be alone.

“And sometimes your actions were shady.” Lena raises a brow. Alex is one to talk about dubious activities. “Yes, I’m aware of how hypocritical I sound. I always thought I was protecting my sister,” she sighs, facing Lena once more. For the first time, Lena doesn’t see Director Alex or Kara’s older sister, it’s just Alex. “It turns out I was unintentionally hurting her. I confused protection for controlling everything she does. And I thought when I shot her, I was doing the right thing. I feel shitty about it now, but there isn’t anything I can do to change the past.”

Kara said she and Alex had a lot in common. Regretting their treatment of Kara is not something she wants to bond over.

“You were a wild card. I couldn’t figure out your intentions. You bought a multi-million dollar company for her.” She opens her mouth, her reply cut off by Alex. “Don’t deny it and try to write it off as good business. You had no experience in the world of media and you had no interest until Kara said something to you. You filled her office with flowers, which let me tell you is so _gay_. I don’t know how I missed all the signs that you were as gone for my sister as she was for you, but I did. I read all of your intentions as the exact opposite. I was concerned you suspected her real identity or your mom or Lex said something to you.”

Lena laughs. Everyone knew before she did. “Trust me, you would’ve seen fireworks if I had known sooner than I did. As Supergirl she was so… so _aggravating_. I hated her condescension and her holier than thou attitude. It pissed me off. It’s likely why I never made the connection.”

“Look,” Alex sighs. “We can’t go back. I am sorry though. You didn’t deserve that. And I want you to know that’s not how I think of you.”

“Now,” Lena says. “I accept your apology. I don’t know where I am in terms of forgiveness. There’s— everything in my head is out of order. I need time.”

Alex smiles sadly. “Take it. I’m in no rush, but we should probably get back on the road.”

“Okay.”

”I gotta say though I think you held back years ago.”

”Probably,” she mumbles. Lena is all about maintaining the status quo even at the expense of herself. 

”You only said half of those things to me.”

Lena knows why. She did it for Kara. 

* * *

It is hours later when they pull into the parking garage adjacent to the mall. Sam texted they were inside Target.

Lena pulls the cap she nicked from Kara’s things low as she follows after Alex. She is far removed from he version of herself featured in the press and she’s low on everyone’s radar, considering everyone believes her dead. It works as no one gives her a second glance as she and Alex enter the mall. She hasn’t visited this mall, preferring to order her clothes tailored to her exact measurements, and skipping the middle man altogether.

She follows behind Alex in search of the Target, jogging to keep up with her brisk pace. She sends Sam a text inquiring to their specific location and receives one a few seconds later. They head over to the school supplies section where her kids are throwing items into the cart. The twins have lists from which they’re checking things off. Orla is tossing anything she likes inside, while Sam and Liam work together from his check list.

“Orla, where’s your list?” She asks the girl. The little blonde taps her back pocket. Lena swipes it.

“Hey!” Orla protests, hands reaching out to snatch it back. Lena holds it higher, snickering as Orla moves to her toes, arms moving wildly to get the list.

Lena looks over the supplies, moving her gaze between the items in the cart, and what the little girl actually needs. “Orla, you don’t need some of this stuff.” Predictably Orla pouts, stomping her foot as Lena forces her to put some of the items back. She looks scarily identical to Kara. “Okay, it says you need a ruler. Before we grab one, do you have one at home?” Lena used school supply shopping as an opportunity to get brand new stuff.

“No, I broke it when I smacked it into my desk to scare Tommy and Riley. They were being bullies.”

There are too many problems in her statement for Lena to address at the moment. “Go ahead and grab one then, and I don’t want to hear about you breaking rulers again.” Orla stares at the selection, choosing a purple colored ruler. “You need two composition notebooks.”

Orla picks one with a puppy and another one that has a banana on the cover. “It even smells like a banana,” Orla pumps her fist. “What’s next?”

“You need a pack of number two pencils.” She grabs a pack with ponies and unicorns. “A one inch binder with pockets.” They find one with flowers on the cover. “Four two pocket folders with three holes.” Orla is indecisive, Lena learns quick enough, tapping her chin as she holds her many options. She mumbles incoherently under her breath, eventually deciding on some folders. She dumps them into the cart. “A pencil box.”

She chooses one with a lock. “People like to steal other people’s stuff,” she tells her mom.

“Crayons, color pencils, and markers.” Orla is faster with this as these are the boring parts her list. “Scissors, loose leaf paper, and one three subject notebook.” Orla moves through the list finishing off with her glue sticks. “And we will move over to the electronics section for headphones.”

The twins stand around waiting, having finished their lists before their siblings. “Hey Sam, I’m going to take these three over to the electronics department for some headphones, while you finish up with Liam.” Alex disappeared somewhere in the store.

Sam nods. “Okay, we will head over after we finish.”

Eilís throws an arm over Oona’s shoulders as they start walking in an exaggerated steps. Their movements are perfectly in sync and their giggles are infectious. Orla clings to Lena’s hand as they move farther back in the store. Orla picks out a pair of Disney princess headphones. Oona selects Star Wars themed ones, and Eilís chooses pastel colored ones with cat ears. The twins wanted to look at games, each carrying around their birthday money with the hopes of finally using it.

Lena nods and they walk over to the cases with the video games. The twins peruse their options, debating the merits of the games they’re interested in, and Lena smiles listening to them. They finally settle on the games they want and Oona volunteers to go find a salesperson.

“Mama?” Eilís frowns, eyes darting around their surroundings.

“What?”

“Where’s Orla?”

“What do you mean?” Lena glances around, trying not to panic when she doesn’t automatically spot her daughter’s golden hair. “Orla,” she calls out. She sprints down the aisles, eyes alert, Eilís trailing after her, calling her sister’s name. "Orla?" Her heart races when there is no response from the seven year old. 

Oona and the sales associate intercept them. “Is there a problem ma’am?” He asks upon noticing her distressed states.

“I can’t find my daughter. She's gone.”

“I’m sure she’s around here. We can make an announcement over the intercom and I'll get my coworkers to help look around the store.”

Lena hides her fear, but she’s frightened. This is every parent’s worst nightmare and this is her first outing with the kids without Kara. She’s lost one. Anything could happen to Orla and it would be all her fault. She clutches Eilís and Oona’s hands as they follow the clerk. She refuses to lose her other two kids and at least Liam is safe with Sam. She takes some comfort in that. 

The fear crawls through her veins, wrapping itself around her heart, restricting blood flow to her lungs until she’s suffocating. She can’t retreat into herself though, there’s a little person out there depending on her. “Oh Rao,” she murmurs. A swirl of morbid thoughts pops into her brain. She tells herself it is her brain chemistry, her mind conjuring the worst case scenario in response to the adrenaline. Her body hums with it. Her body pumps more of it and she thinks her heart might explode. Her eyes are wide and panicked as they call Orla’s name over the intercom. It feels as if part of her world has disappeared and she's known this kid for just a week. 

Eventually security arrives. Alex and Sam are at her side, showing Orla’s picture to customers, as she explains to security what happened. She has her own phone out, showing them a picture of Orla taken earlier that morning. Was it really a few hours ago she spent retying her ribbon? “She’s wearing this exact outfit. She has on light up shoes that are pink. Please, you have to find my daughter. She's seven,” she stresses. 

There is no security footage inside the store as the system was in the process of being repaired. And Lena is crawling out of her skin. Her daughter could be anywhere, with anyone. “She responds to the name Orla.”

Worse is when she has to call Kara. She can’t put it off any longer. She handled the mall security and searched the store, thinking Orla would turn up in the toy section or something. She is nowhere to be found in the store. “Mrs. Luthor, we are going to do everything to find your daughter. We’ve already closed off the entrances and contacted the police.”

“I—I’ve got to call my wife.”

It’s the first time she’s really said the words and under the worst circumstances. She clicks on Kara’s contact, lifting the device to her ear, heart almost jumping out of her chest when it rings.

“Lena?”

“Kara,” she chokes out. Her tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down her cheeks. This is really happening. 

“Lena, baby what’s wrong?”

She is shaking. “I lost her.”

“Lost who?” 

“Orla, we can’t find her. Kara, I lost our daughter.”

“Lena, I’m on my way. Okay, we are going to find her.”

All of her walls come tumbling down. In the past, she could mask her emotions and used it as a form to cope, but something has changed inside of her. The shutters have been removed.

They are escorted to the security office to wait for the police. The twins situate themselves next to her and Liam leans back into her chest. They have to find her. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if they can’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *hides under a rock*
> 
> Find me on [ _tumblr_](https://jmoonrise.tumblr.com)


	13. with a whisper we will tame the vicious seas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of cheez-its and cookies were harmed in the making of this chapter. Also there were a lot of cuddles with my cat involved. 
> 
> Anyway this chapter is dedicated to my new friend Cara, who might be more competitive than me, which is saying something. But I did best her in the end with quarks.

The silence is deafening in Dr. Jacobs’ office. She can hear everything in and out of the office, the thunderous pounding of her own heart, the steadier beat of her therapist’s, tiny rivulets of water dripping from the sink in the ladies’ restroom, the click clack of Dr. Jacob’s assistant’s fingernails as they hit the keyboard. She hears it all, her ability to tune it all out has vanished. She’s too on edge, her mind flitting all over the place, swirling with too many thoughts, each centered on Lena. That’s her real problem, Lena.

Kara counts the ceiling tiles, an action she’s done hundreds of times in the last decade, but the repetitiveness brings a comfort to her— especially with her turbulent thoughts refusing to settle. One of them is a slightly different shade than the others, another suffers from a little water damage.

“Kara,” Dr. Jacobs sighs, patient as always. “You’re doing it again.”

“I can’t help it,” she admits, fingers twitching at her side. “I’m angry and frustrated and all of these other emotions, but I can’t be any of that. I _just_ can’t feel that.”

“Why?”

Kara shoots up into a seated position, shooting daggers at her therapist for such a redundant question. It’s obvious. Or maybe it is to her. “Because,” she stresses the word, wanting to emphasize the importance of the sentence to follow, she grips her hands tightly, decreasing blood flow. “She’s going through a lot and she doesn’t need my emotional baggage on top of everything else. She barely tolerates me most of the time.”

“And why do you think that?”

Kara scoffs derisively, throwing in a roll of her eyes as an added measure. “Um for starters, most of the time she keeps her distance from me. Then there’s how she looks at me as if I’m the scum of the earth.” She ticks off on her fingers, her movements jerky, full of aggression and annoyance. Her intentions for coming to therapy were to find an outlet for her emotions, but instead she’s unloading all of her pent up _everything_ on her therapist. She wants to feel validated, someone to tell her she’s entitled to feel how she does. “She spends most of her time with the kids and only talks to me on occasion. But she’s struggling so much. She’s missing years and years worth of memories and all she has is my word and that of my family members that all of this is real and not some elaborate hoax. She’s not…” she falters, losing most of her momentum as she shrinks in on herself.

“She’s not what?” Dr. Jacobs refuses to allow her any latitude when she tries to brush over her worries. Kara spent too many years concealing her own feelings, burying them deep in the recesses of her mind - - the dark corners remaining untouched. Kara refused to share her burdens, to lighten some of the load she carried on her broad shoulders, preferring to remain silent as she took on everyone else’s problems.

Kara believed it far easier to keep everything inside than to admit that there were things that bothered her.

“Do you remember when you told me about the first time you fell under the influence of Red K?” Kara bobs her head, throat dry and tight. “It was scary because while the thoughts weren’t foreign, you would never in good conscience act out any of them. You pretend. You pretend day in and day out that you’re okay, that you don’t have negative thoughts, that nothing bothers you when it’s all a facade.”

Is it? She believed it was what everyone expected from her. The Danvers were gracious enough to take in a young refugee, ignorant of the ways of humans, silent and tentative, begging and crying when she broke a glass figure or her elbow created a fissure of cracks in the wall. And she tried. She really did try to blend and be like them. She knew she stuck out, the kids at school sensed her otherness and steered clear of her. They ignored her, pretending there was no Kara when she tried to initiate any kind of conversation.

And her sister… Alex said it then, perhaps more honest of her own feelings in regards to Kara than Kara has ever been about Alex. She expressed hate towards her younger sister, raged quietly every time Eliza reminded Alex to look out for her, seethed with envy when Eliza heaped attention on Kara or showed concern, played the role of the scorned daughter, believing she was nothing more than a disappointment to Eliza. Though how she phrased it under the influence of red kryptonite was full of vindictive cruelty and calculated coldness, there was a kernel of truth to it. Alex may have come to love her later on, but a part of her would always hate Kara for what she stole from her— the life she had before Kara arrived. Kara represented the end of her idyllic childhood, the loss of her father - - twice.

They were truths neither acknowledged, ignoring in favor of their newly minted bond, and years later, neither touched them after finding a delicate balance in the aftermath of Kara coming out as Supergirl. Still, Kara had her own feelings about Alex too that she never addressed.

Doubting her sister is the last thing she wants. Except sometimes she’s had to question whether or not Alex had good intentions in mind. Though Lena would have a differing opinion on the matter, she allowed Alex to make the decisions, control the path of her life, talk her out of becoming a superhero long before she was cast into the spotlight. She followed all of Alex’s rules, believing her love and affection were contingent on how satisfactorily she could perform the role of Kara Danvers, regular human girl. Alex’s persuasions influenced her own decision making process and she set aside some of her own values to please her sister.

She loved Mon-El. She did. But there was something missing when she was with him. She kept giving and giving, expecting some big pay off in the end— and when that never came, she thought she had simply been aiming too high or that love was not in the cards for her. He was never the prince of her story. He was the placeholder until someone more fit and deserving of the position came along. It turned out she was there all along and Kara was oblivious to her presence as she idled in the background. It was only in her wildest imaginings that someone as spectacular, loving, giving, intelligent as Lena would choose her when there was a world full of suitable options that could offer Lena some semblance of a normal life and provide the world.

Yet in all of those years of friendship, she was reluctant to consider that Lena really was the only girl, the only choice, no one else had mattered for a long time and hadn’t that said it all. From the moment she turned her cool green gaze to Kara, she knew things couldn’t go back to the way they were and after that Kara hardly noticed anyone else, briefly allowing herself to get caught up in Mon-El, falling for his half-truths and his blatant interest in her. She was thoroughly convinced this was what Rao had in mind for her until Mon-El returned from the future married and different than the man she knew.

But still hovering at the sidelines was Lena. Kara had no idea when she had become integral to her existence, but she came to rely on Lena’s presence in her life more than anyone else’s. She became Lena’s personal defender against the world, prepared to take out her own sister if it meant protecting her. Every accusation thrown in Lena’s direction, Kara was ready to defend her, whether she wanted it or not. She was intent on proving that she believed in her, in Lena’s inherent goodness and ability to change and inspire change in the world. Lena may have been born to the family of darkness, raised in the shadows, but she clung to tendrils of light, yearning for her day in the sun, never realizing she had been basking in the illuminance of her own sun all that time.

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t love her. I find myself losing control when I’m near her. I want to touch her,” she blanches, flushing several shades of red as her words hit her. “Not like _that_ ,” she amends immediately, fidgeting when Dr. Jacobs gives her a look. “Okay well _that_ but also regular every day stuff. I just miss the little things like holding her hand, or when she played with my hair. I miss talking about my day and listening to her insult members of her board. The Lena that’s returned, she’s not the one that left and I think she might… l-leave,” she chokes on the word, face shuttering with a flash of micro emotions. It’s the last thing she wants to contemplate, but she has to cover her bases. And it’s a distinct possibility.

Lena has none of their shared memories over the last decade. She wasn’t the one who made the lifelong commitment to Kara, binding them together forever. While she feels something for the kids, Kara has no idea how strongly she cares for them, or if she loves them. Lena is hesitant at times to participate in family meals, feeling as if she’s an intruder—a thief in someone else’s life.

“What have we talked about?”

Kara sighs, leaning back against the cushions, head thrown back, face devoid of emotion. “That this is about me. However our lives are so wrapped up in each other’s that I really don’t know what to do. How do I disengage when everything inside of me longs to do the opposite?” She wars with what is expected of her and her innermost desires, caught between the two sides of her. “I can’t force her to stay— I know that.” Nothing can make a person stay if they want to leave. If Lena decides that it’s all too much, that Kara is too much, Kara has to let her go. She’d never forcibly shackle someone to her and though it would destroy her, as long as she knew Lena was out there, heart beating and breath in her lungs, she could survive it. She would learn how to live in a world where Lena no longer loved her.

“It’s… I naively believed that the stars would align. We haven’t had anything disastrous happen to us after that last time I got injured. Making Supergirl more of a part-time job as opposed to a dual career changed everything. Lena worried less. We were making plans for the future, you know?”

They discussed potentially moving out of the city, finding a house with a large backyard for their children to run wild and free. Lena considered taking a step back at L-Corp, wanting to spend more time with their kids as they grow up. It was strange and amazing that they’ve been parents for nine years when sometimes it felt as if they blinked and their lives were suddenly fast forwarded. All of their carefully crafted plans have been tossed out the window without the possibility of coming to fruition.

“I-I— I’ve never felt lost like this. There’s so much contingent on Lena getting her memories back, but the odds aren’t really that good. It would be different if it was a couple of months or a few years, but this is the entire span of our romantic relationship. She’s stuck in a time where the sight of me broke her heart.” Her face twitches, tears burning her eyes, she blinks them back, ignoring the stinging sensation, unwilling to fall apart. She can’t.

“It’s okay to cry, Kara. I know you continue to struggle with this. It’s a work in progress and you’ve built up a pattern over the years of suppressing your emotions, but you’re allowed to feel. You can feel whatever you want even if it’s only in here. Let it out.”

She shakes her head, tears falling loose, biting her lip and swallowing thickly as she squeezes her eyes shut. Her shoulders are hunched and her fingers dig into the cushions. “I can’t,” she cries.

“Yes you can,” Dr. Jacobs assures her. Kara notes the empathy she injects into her plea.

And like a tidal wave crashing onto the shore, something breaks free. At first, it’s one tear, another sliding down her face, and then there are too many to count. Her vision is blurred and her chest aches with raw emotion, her throat clogs and burns, and she’s gasping for air. Her lungs tighten, constricting air flow, and she’s never desired breath more than in this moment.

The world fades and she’s there in her head, surrounded by the thoughts that creep in when she’s alone, whispering in her ear, plaguing her until she gives up. Kara digs her palms into her eyes, shaking her head, begging the thoughts to stop. _‘She’s going to leave.’ ‘She’s finally free of you.’ ‘It’s all your fault.’ ‘You failed to save her.’ ‘You’re a failure Kara, you’ll never be the hero you tell yourself you are.’ ‘You aren’t worthy or deserving of her love.’_

“Kara!”

She screams, tucking her face into her knees, hiding. She’s safe there. She rocks and rocks, trying to rebuild the dam. She has to fix it.

“Kara, it’s okay. You’re okay.” She feels waves of emotions that are not her own, comfort offered to her, a hand extended out, ready to pull her from the dark forest that is her mind. Kara shudders, arms tightening around her knees. “Loss scares you.”

And here she is paying Dr. Jacobs hundreds of dollars a session.

“I know that’s obvious,” there’s faint amusement injected in her tone. “Loss, grief- - they’re natural. To love people, we have to accept that one day they’ll leave us whether that be in death or through the choices we make in life. Six months ago after you heard about the accident and you slowly processed and came to accept that she was gone, you were forced to acknowledge your grief.”

Kara nods, face still buried in the folds of her jeans. She’s not ready to face the world, to see the empathy shining in her therapist’s eyes, the kindness written into the lines of her face.

“We talked about how grief is an extension of love. It’s a form that has no place to go because the person you loved is no longer there. You talked about that hollow feeling in your chest, how you felt empty and didn’t know how to go forward. You felt stuck.”

She did. She was trapped. Everyone kept looking at her, the Luthor widow with four kids, anticipating her inevitable breakdown. She remained stoic at the memorial, face composed and stare blank. There was a perpetual lump in her throat, the words she tried to speak were caught behind it, and all she could manage to do was go through the motions. She faked it.

She kept up the charade until it became too much and she needed to escape from it all, the press with their flashing cameras and barrage of questions for which she had no answer, her sisters’ sorrowful expressions when she entered the room, and her own brokenness. She lied in bed at night, eyes drawn to the indentation left by another, the swirl of jasmine perfume clouding her senses, the clothes left untouched next to hers and she saw no way out. Reminders of Lena surrounded her everywhere she went and she was suffocating. She collected all of the unspent love, allowed it to build up with no way to express it. She couldn’t release it. It wasn’t tangible, but it meant she had loved Lena. That Lena was real and not really gone from her. She needed it to hold on.

“It’s okay to grieve for the Lena you lost. If she leaves, you’ll be okay. And who says that her leaving is permanent?”

A single blue eye pops open, dark and stormy, clouds of grey forming. “She would,” she says stubbornly, chin jutting out defiantly.

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“You don’t know her.”

“I know you and through you I know Lena. If what you’ve said is true, she loves you. I understand wanting to avoid talking about this with someone who’s struggling with their own issues, but how do you expect to resolve any of this? You say you love her. Yet you’re willing to give her up, let her walk out the door without a fight. If she needs time to adjust by all means give it to her if that’s right, however if you really want to build back up your relationship then you need to open the channels of communication. This is a Lena that doesn’t know that side of you. She hasn’t watched the years of progress. She doesn’t know the work you’ve done. If you want her to see that you’ve changed, that you respect she has a choice- - a voice in all of this, to know that you’re not keeping secrets from her, you’ve got to talk to her.”

She sighs. It’s a small concession.

Holding back has done her no favors in the past and pushed Lena to where she is. “I’m scared that I’m not what she wants. She knows dorky Kara Danvers, CatCo reporter, not Kara Danvers, wife and mom of four.”

“You know how I feel about labels. They’re simplistic and to try and define yourself by a few measly words hardly encompasses all that you are. You’re more than a few descriptive words. You’ve got to stop hiding and own who you are. That’s the Kara, Lena wants to see.”

She hates when Dr. Jacobs is right. Not really. It’s just that when she vocalizes it, her framing is better than Kara’s. “I wish that dumb plane crash never happened. Alex, J’onn, and I have already started investigating into the circumstances that brought it down. And it makes me angrier because it’s looking like a deliberate cover up. Someone intentionally did this to my family and I don’t even know what to do with that. How do I explain that to my kids? To Lena?” She lays her head in her palm, groaning. “Rao, I have to tell Lena about these developments and that’s terrifying.”

“I believe you can do it.”

“At least one of us does,” she grumbles, displeased by the platitude. Her therapist has more faith in her capabilities than she does.

“You need to talk to Lena. Do you remember our early sessions when we first began discussing your relationship?” Kara nods. She’s unlikely to forget such a turbulent time in her life, filled with heartbreak and uncertainty as she tried to navigate a minefield. “You told me Lena had a hard time trusting you, differentiating the truth from all the lies because you spent so much time covering up that you were Supergirl.” Kara wishes she would get on with it, not needing a recap of the past, instead just cutting to the chase. Dr. Jacobs looks at her and Kara feels thoroughly chastised for her lack of patience. Lena’s told her she has issues with drawing out things, always wanting to be in the thick of things and punching her problems without untangling the web. “Talking to her will help. Have you even told her about her family?”

Kara averts her eyes, guilt briefly flickers across her face before she snuffs it out, schooling her expression, cognisant of the fact that Dr. Jacobs could read her emotions. With her heightened emotions, she knows she’s sending out a bright beacon. She has plans to tell Lena. She was waiting for her to ask. She was going to do it. Of course she was.

“I’ll take the lack of an answer as an answer. Why haven’t you said anything?”

She feels the thready pulsing of her jaw as it clenches, cheek twitching when her teeth gnash together. “She didn’t ask,” she grits out, dropping her eyes to her lap.

“We both know you could’ve found a way to bring it up to her.” And she’s right. As much as Lena has avoided broaching sensitive topics, Kara has done the same, wanting to preserve what they have. “I know you want to protect her, but Kara, you can’t protect someone from the truth. You’ll only hurt them.”

Shame curls in thick curds in her stomach - - the guilt weighing her down as she folds in on herself trying to bear it. “I gave her the cliff notes version,” she admits, twisting her fingers together, refusing to look up. “I didn’t want to overwhelm her, but the longer I let this keep, the more it seems as if I was intentionally keeping it from her. I suppose it’s probably why she hasn’t looked herself up on the internet. She’s waiting for me.”

“She very well could be. I know it feels like a setback, but you already know what you have to do, maybe you knew it before you came here.”

And perhaps she did. Sometimes she needed the extra boost from her therapy to muster the courage to confront her problems head on. She doesn’t want to revert to her past methods of handling her issues— they never worked all that well for her in the end.

Kara glances at her phone, catching sight of the time with a long exhale. “Looks like our session is done.” She’s unsure if she’s okay with that. Her anxiety spikes at the thought of stepping foot outside of the office. She chews on her lips, eyes flicking to the door and back to her therapist.

“Stop focusing on the things you can’t chan—“

“And focus on what I can. I know. I know,” she huffs. Some of her nerves have settled with a wave of calm directed at her.

She’s heard it often from her therapist over many sessions. It’s ingrained in her to try and solve everything on her own using the tools she possesses. There has to be a solution, some alternative she’s never considered. Realistically, she’s aware of the unhealthy standards she’s set for herself and understands it stems from the responsibilities her parents placed on her shoulders when they put her in that pod. But she’s the one in the driver’s seat, controlling her direction and speed, and ultimately it’s up to her to decide what to do next.

“You’ve got this Kara. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was your relationship with your wife. So this is a setback, a major one, but if Lena really wanted nothing to do with you, she didn’t have to leave the hospital with you. She chose to engage with you and the kids,” Dr. Jacobs reminds her with a kind smile. “And one last thing before you leave, you can always make new memories. You can’t replace Lena. Think about that before you do anything.”

“See ya next week,” Kara says with a half wave. She sags against the door, taking a second to compose herself before heading back into the world.

She squares her shoulders, straightens her posture, and adapts a neutral expression. She hopes all evidence of her crying has faded as she exits the building, sliding her black sunglasses into place. The autumn sun’s warmth is faint, but the light helps alleviate some of the stress and rejuvenates her, lifting her mood if only a little.

With Lena and the kids off handling school shopping for the afternoon, she decides to check on the family home, having made a brief detour on the way to her session to drop off the cat. She had their housekeeper stop by to tidy up the place, stock the fridge and pantry, and air out the house, had the house inspected in preparation for their return.

She ducks into an alley, lifting into the sky, fast enough to where no one can see anything but a blonde blur. She starts to feel like herself with the wind tickling her face, her hair whipping about, and the feeling of being limitless. She stays up there for a while, floating amongst the clouds, thinking.

Kara has to talk to Lena. She’s stolen a lot of her choices from her in the past, making unilateral decisions behind her back, thinking she knew best. She never gave Lena a chance to decide for herself and if she wants any semblance of rekindling their relationship, she has to reveal at least some of her hand. This no longer pertains solely to them with their four children in the mix. The potential for someone getting hurt has increased exponentially and she would rather limit everyone’s pain.

She blows out a long breath. It’s out of her control and she knows that she can’t fix this with a bandage, kiss it and it’s all better. It’s a different kind of problem. There is no quick fix.

Kara drifts, her mind darting from one thought to the next. She hums a little to ease her worries. There’s no good to be had over fretting about things which have yet to pass. Eventually she descends, landing with a soft thud in her backyard.

She presses her thumb into the scanner before opening the door, the familiar pine scent from the floor polish envelops her. The house looks much the same as it did the week before, except there’s no longer a thick layer of dust coating everything. The house was a stuffy mausoleum, perfectly preserved to contain Lena’s memory. Somehow she feels it should be different, changed, after all the last six months has left their mark on all of them. But everything is exactly where she and the children left it.

Unlike the wintery decor of Lena’s former penthouse, their home is a breath of autumn, decorated in shades of browns and reds. Pictures of their family are proudly displayed everywhere, showcasing their family and the love that surrounds them. They’ve done their best to document their children’s lives.

She spares a glance for the wall where they measure their children, ticks made every six months, marking their ages and their current height. Her feet carry her over and her fingers brush over the last batch. All of the kids are due for another notch, each much taller than the last time she and Lena checked. While the house remained untouched, the occupants changed and the younger ones grew in their absence.

Her eyes are drawn to the small garden of flowers painted by her two youngest children. She and Lena nearly had a conniption when they discovered what they had done while the babysitter helped the twins with their homework. Orla beamed up at her with large blue eyes and told her ‘ _we’re like our own garden mommy. We grow and so do they.’_ She melted and turned her pout to Lena, begging her to cave as well. It would be a cute story when their kids were older and something they could look back at with fondness. They told everyone they had their own little garden.

Kara meanders to the kitchen, finding it fully stocked, grabbing a pack of cookies to snack on, less to satiate her hunger and more for something to do with her hands. Stuffing her mouth is a good distraction for the time being. Kara pours a large glass of milk for her cookies and sits at the island.

From her current position she has a decent view of their backyard. She notes it’s in desperate need of some landscaping and creates a reminder on her phone to call their landscaper. She could do it herself, but all of her energy has been expended in therapy. Weeds shoot up in every direction, the grass unruly and thick. From her vantage point, she can’t see Liam’s garden, but she suspects it’s in need of some pruning. He had been sad to leave his flowers.

Her mind drifts to a few autumns ago when her children were still classified as little. She wishes she could go back to then, when there were more baby teeth than adult teeth, to little sprites dancing with the leaves, pink faces and messy hair convinced they found a fairy ring.

Liam has changed the most in these last few years. The roundness in his cheeks has faded and his body has lengthened as he’s started to sprout up— leaving toddlerhood behind. Orla has grown more coordinated and sure of her movements, possessing innate grace and elegance. And then there are her twins, her first borns, the two children she carried what seems a lifetime ago, before she and Lena knew what parenting entailed. They have opinions and a deeper understanding of life. Some of their childish naivety fades with each passing day. She never thought it would happen this fast, but her twins are halfway to eighteen. In a few short years, they’ll become teens with their younger brother and sister following right after.

Growing nostalgic, she unlocks her phone, opening her albums to search for a video to soothe the ache. The passage of time does funny things to her. It’s there she finds the moment that changed her life forever.

_Kara is sweaty and gross, hair clinging to her face, but her eyes are bright and alive. Her face glows and she wears the softest smile as she stares down at a pink wrapped bundle, mesmerized by the tiny cherub face. Her knuckle brushes over rosebud lips, trails down the downy soft, peach colored cheeks. The baby makes a noise, her tiny fingers clenching. “Lena,” her voice holds so much wonder, eyes never leaving the baby. “We are moms. Look at what we created.” Lena pops into the frame, carrying a tightly wrapped bundle of her own, identical to the other one._

_Lena is crying. Her eyes are the color of moss and she wears a new smile, one Kara’s never seen as she stares down at their little angels. “They’re so perfect and beautiful.” She’s in absolute awe, disbelief lacing her tone that she’s been entrusted something so precious. “I-we did this. Thank you darling,” she says, her voice catching._

_“Honey, there’s no one else I’d rather do this with than you. I had given up on this life for myself and then there was you. You don’t have to thank me because I wanted this just as much as you, but you’re totally carrying the next one. There’s no fuc—” Kara cuts herself off with a swift worried glance at her daughters. Being around Lena has changed her and she’s incorporated swearing into her everyday language, but she refuses to expose her children to that._

_Alex chuckles behind the camera._

_“No fudging way I’m doing this again.” She shifts in the bed, wincing as she adjusts her position. “I may be Supergirl and had my as— butt handed to me multiple times, but childbirth is no joke. So you’ll be pregnant if we do this again.”_

_Lena chuckles wetly, nodding in that way that’s more to appease Kara than actual agreement. She leans over to peck Kara on the cheek, her nose brushing down the side of her wife’s face. “Whatever you say dear.”_

_“We should talk about names,” Kara murmurs. She can’t seem to remove her gaze from her sleeping daughters. “I’ve been looking at some Irish names,” she says, eyes darting nervously to her wife, hesitant to bring up the topic. Lena has no real ties to her heritage except for a house in the Irish countryside and years spent at an Irish boarding school._

_Lena’s head snaps up and she stares at Kara, eyes wide and brimming with hope. “Wha— you have?” She wets her lips. “I thought you might want something Kryptonian.”_

_Kara shakes her head. “They’re our kids and Krypton isn’t completely gone. There’s Argo and our kids will know that side of them. I want them to have something from you too.” She had given this a lot of thought throughout her pregnancy and she wanted to do this for Lena. She already felt guilty for being a Luthor and Kara didn’t want her to feel alone. She proudly adopted her wife’s last name. “I like the name Oona and she was born first. She was very impatient, couldn’t even wait for us to get to the car,” she mutters irritably. Oona was ready to escape her confines and see the world. Lena had to deliver her daughter with the assistance of Alex via phone. Kara was extremely worried it would affect her sex life, but Lena assured her, she wasn’t bothered at all by the sight of a crowning baby. Alex was speeding across the city, hurrying to her sister’s side, missing out on her niece’s birth by mere minutes. With Alex’s help, they managed to get Kara into the car. Their little bundle was in her aunt’s arms, none of them having the patience to set up car seats in their haste to arrive at the hospital before the second one made her appearance._

_“Oona,” Lena murmurs, gaze fixed on her daughter. Oona raises a little fist in her sleep as if to say she agrees with the name. “I think she likes it,” Lena grins. “And what about this one?” Her eyes shift to the snoozing babe in her arms, her face scrunched in slumber. Lena adjusts her cap in absolute awe of the tiny creature that was half her. “Any ideas?”_

_Kara hums affirmatively, pressing her head into Lena’s shoulder, lips brushing her neck. “Eilís,” she says decisively, nodding. “I was terrified when we almost her and almost like a miracle from Rao himself, she’s here.”_

_“And it’s a form of your mom’s name, and she’s been a real godsend after we came back from Argo.” Lena nuzzles into Kara. “Middle names?”_

_“I figured I did the hard part carrying them, birthing them, and giving them first names. You got this mama.” She nudges Lena, yawning as she burrows her head into Lena’s shoulder. Lena kisses the top of her head._

_“Mama,” the word tumbles out of her lips like a silky caress. “I like it.”_

_“Good because that’s what you are.”_

_Lena’s mouth curves into a pretty smile that reaches her eyes. She leans her head against Kara’s, staring down at the two infants. “Well what about Oona Grace? Grace means favor or charm, or if we are going with the spiritual meaning, it’s bestowed upon us without us having to deserve it.”_

_“A strong name, I like it. What about the other one?”_

_“Hmm,” Lena pauses, caressing her daughter’s face with the backs of her fingers. “What about Hope?”_

_“A bit on the nose there.”_

_“Maybe but I also had hope that everything would turn out right. I needed that hope. And look, we’ve got two beautiful baby girls and each other.”_

_“You’re right and such a sap. If the press could see you now,” she yawns widely, her entire face stretching. “Welcome to the world Oona Grace and Eilís Hope Danvers-Luthor.”_

_Kara angles her face to capture Lena’s mouth in a light, feathery kiss, both mindful of Alex’s presence and that Kara was still sore from the delivery. “I love you so much,” she whispers._

_“Ditto,” Kara laughs._

_“Ugh you’re never going to let that go are you?”_

_“Aw c’mon Lena, it’s funny.”_

_“You’re lucky you’re cute.”_

_“Just cute?” Kara asks with a flutter of her lashes. “Nothing else?”_

_“You’re also a major dork and absolutely incorrigible.”_

_Kara pouts._

_“And the love of my life, well actually you’ll have to share the role with them now.”_

_Kara tears her eyes away from their children. “I can live with that if you can, but even long after they think we’re no longer cool, I’ll still love you and think you’re the coolest.”_

_“Oh you do say the sweetest things.”_

_“I try.”_

Kara sniffles when the video ends, wiping her tears with her sleeve, an action she knows Lena hates. Her phone starts to vibrate. She looks down, heart skipping as she fumbles with the device.

“Lena?” She answers uncertainly, tension coiling in her belly. She can’t imagine there being a good reason for Lena calling her.

“Kara,” she chokes out. Kara hears the tears and feels the tug on her heartstrings. She should’ve been there with them.

“Lena, baby what’s wrong?”

“I lost her.” Kara freezes, heart nearly jumping out of her chest, positive she misheard Lena.

“Lost who?”

“Orla, we can’t find her. Kara, I lost our daughter.”

“Lena, I’m on my way. Okay, we are going to find her.”

She stops herself from flying out of the residence. It would do no good for her to show up seconds after Lena called her. That would raise a lot of flags. She tries to calm her rising panic and shove aside her darker thoughts. There are too many possibilities for her daughter’s disappearance.

It takes her a moment to remember. “The watches,” she snaps her fingers, excitedly. She opens her phone, fingers moving rapidly to launch Lena’s app for the watches. She clicks on Orla’s name. “What the fuck?” Orla’s watch died a few hours ago. Her last known location was somewhere on the interstate as they headed toward National City. “Of course,” she mutters. Orla is the worst offender of all her kids at not recharging her watch, often forgetting to lay it on the charger at night before bed. “Well that’s a bust.” She refrains from tossing the device, with her heightened emotions, she’s likely to break it.

Deciding she’s given herself enough time to make a plausible entrance, she flies off to the mall, rushing straight to security when she arrives. The crowds are thick as people are interviewed by the police and kept from exiting until they find Orla.

She caught sight of the press on her way over, no doubt catching the name Luthor. The name was bound to garner some attention with the plane crash and Kara’s disappearance from the city. The media had been itching for a story surrounding their family and all fronts were quiet end closed off to them until now. She knows there’s no avoiding facing them and their discovery of Lena’s alive status. The press conference will have to be pushed up to keep the press from writing outlandish stories and spreading lies. She pushes thoughts of them away, deciding that’s a headache for later, putting all of her focus into locating her daughter.

Kara finds the security office easily enough, following the sound of Lena’s rapid heartbeat. She opens the door. At first she sees her children with no Lena in sight and then she spots the dark hair of her wife pouring over a monitor with some of the guards, tracking Orla’s movements through the mall.

* * *

Lena refuses to sit idly while others search for her daughter. Alex and Sam are assisting efforts in the main part of the mall, and she decides to put her own skills to use. She doesn’t so much as ask but tell the guards she’s going to look through their footage for any trace of Orla.

There are a lot of cameras and she decides to start with the ones near the Target. She misses Orla coming out of the store as two large families exited at the same time, obscuring anyone who departed with them. Orla is small and spry, able to blend with a crowd.

She widens her search, pouring over each camera angle to find her child. She’s never worried like this before in her life, desperation clouding her actions. All she wants to do is find her daughter and hug her, pressing kisses to every inch of her blonde head.   


And then something unfurls in her mind, a lost memory is called forth, her current situation triggering something long passed.

_She searches frantically, poking her head down every aisle, desperate to find… she can’t remember, but she’s looking for it nonetheless._

_With every aisle, she loses a little more hope, barely clinging to threads of hope. She has no idea how Kara can do it— believe when it seems impossible, but she’s done her best. Something squeezes her hand and she looks down to find inquisitive, frightened eyes staring back up at her, each eye a different color. One of them is her own and she idly wonders if it’s her own fear reflected back at her. “Mama?” She hears and she knows the voice._

_It’s Oona but not. She's different. Younger?_

_At least she thinks there’s something off about her. She has the same strawberry blonde waves, nearly as familiar to her as her own dark tresses at this point. She’s dressed in a school uniform, collar untucked and dress wrinkled, an orange smudge trailing down the dress. In her other hand, she plays with a blue hair clip, fingers snapping and unsnapping the hair accessory._

_But her face is younger, the hardness in her eyes is gone, and there's something_ _wholly pure and innocent about her - - like she's remained untouched by the world's horrors. There are a few gaps in her smile, spaces for teeth that have yet to make an appearance._

_“Yes?”_

_“I thought we were gonna find La?”_

_“Do you remember where you last saw her?” She asks. She can’t recall which section of the store she saw her daughter, too focused on completing her errands. She was attempting to multitask, finishing up some emails while also collecting a few items for dinner, and then when she looked down to ask Orla a question, she discovered she wasn't there._

_“You got your serious face.”_

_“Yes your sister is missing.”_

_“You said we was gonna find a manager.”_

_“I did,” she tries to sound reassuring, but she’s struggling to maintain her composure with her daughter’s whereabouts unknown. She should have paid better attention._

_Oona tugs on her hand, pulling her towards the front of the supermarket. She trips after the surprisingly strong girl. Oona’s dress flutters in her wake and Lena can see all of furls and knots in the girl’s hair, begging for Lena to run a brush through them, and she thinks of Orla’s perpetually tangled blonde locks._

_To her shock, there’s a security guard and a teary Orla when they arrive. The security guard kneels before her daughter, trying to coax her into answering some questions, but Orla is too distraught, tears dripping down her face, puffy and red._

_“Orla!!” She hears herself shout, mouth moving of its’ own accord._

_Her tiny blond head snaps up, blue eyes widening as she sprints away from the security guard, heading straight for Lena. Lena drops to her knees and engulfs her daughter in a hug, squeezing tight, the warm weight of her daughter is comforting and she finds her pulse settling to something more steady. “Mama,” her daughter cries, arms tightening around Lena’s neck as she buries her face, tears soaking through her mother’s blouse. “I got lost.”_

_“Shh… I’ve got you baby. Mama has you and I won’t let you go.”_

_Orla sniffles, face still buried in Lena’s neck as Oona pats her sister on the back. “It’s okay La.”_

_“O!”_

_Orla pulls away and throws herself at her sister. “Oomph,” Oona sighs as their bodies collide. But she does hold onto her sister, smoothing down her hair— doing her best to provide comfort to her little sister. Lena knows despite disagreements with her siblings, Oona takes her role as the eldest seriously._

_“Orla, you’ve got to stick by my side when we are at the store. You were supposed to hold onto the cart. Why did you let go?”_

_“I saw da ice cream and I wanted some.”_

_Lena feels some of the tension drain away, unable to maintain her anger, and most of her fear has dissipated upon laying eyes on her daughter - - checking for herself that she’s okay. “I told you we would get some after your dance class.”_

_Orla drops her head, sniffling loudly, wiping her drippy nose on her uniform sleeve. Lena feels herself grimacing, the urge to scold Orla for using her clothes lingers on her tongue, but she dismisses it, finding it the least of her concerns after the panic she’s just suffered. “I’m sorry,” she apoligizes, her watery blue eyes are just like her mother’s and Lena melts. Kara says she can be a big softy even though they both know that it’s her. “Come on, I just need to grab some broccoli for dinner and then we can go. We will go to check out and then I’ll make your dinner before your carpool.”_

_Orla stares at her in shock, expectant of a different response from her mother. “You’re not mad?”_

_Lena sighs, raking a hand through her hair. “No, more relieved than anything, but we will talk about wandering off in the store with mommy later. You scared me. Probably took about twenty years off my life.“_

_“Sorry mama.” Orla kisses her, it’s wet and her snotty nose brushes against Lena’s face, but that’s what parenthood is all about. She’ll take her kids’ gross kisses any day as long as she gets to have them._

Lena’s eyes flash open, her heart rate ratchets up, mind clinging to the memory, while trying to concentrate on pinpointing her daughter in the security system. “Aha,” she exclaims when she has a lead on Orla. The little girl trails after an older girl with a smaller girl around Orla’s age.

“What? What is it?” She snaps her head up to discover Kara mere inches from her face. Her face is pinched with worry, the crinkle between her brows is prominent, and Lena shakes her head to clear her mind. She didn’t even hear Kara arrive.

She points to the screen. “Look there she is.”

Kara knits her brows together and there’s a strange look on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s Beth,” she says as if Lena knows who that is. “Right sorry, Beth is Orla’s best friend in the whole world. And that’s Beth’s babysitter, Sara.”

None of that explains why their daughter is with them or where she went. Lena tracks their movements through the mall when a call comes in over the radio.

“Child found in food court.”

And sure enough, on the monitor, Orla and her best friend sit at a table in the food court.

“Food,” Lena scoffs. She should have known. Though she has no clue what would propel her daughter to leave her side and go off in the mall on her own, the least surprising thing about her disappearance is her final destination. She’s seven and anything could have happened. She’s certain from the memory they had a discussion about this very thing.

The two moms are out of the office and heading directly for the food court two levels up. Lena doesn’t bother with pleasantries as she passes people on the escalator, her one desire to hug the hell out of her child, to look her over and to never let her go again. It’s easy to spot her daughter with the mix of police and security surrounding her. Her tiny blonde head sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Lena flashes back to the memory and relief flows through her when her eyes land on her youngest daughter. She sprints to her, closing the distance, enfolding Orla in her embrace. “Oh god,” she cries, tucking her face into Orla’s neck, inhaling the light scent of her strawberry shampoo. “You’re okay.”

“Ma-ma,” she chokes out. “Can’t breath,” she wheezes.

“I don’t care, Orla Elanor.” She holds her tighter, Kara’s arms wrapping around both of them.

After difficulties cultivating and maintaining relationships of any kind, Lena fortified herself into a glacier. Glaciers were large and frozen and it was an iceberg that took down a whole ship on its’ maiden voyage. And it worked for her. She froze people out, kept them at a distance, so no one could penetrate her frozen layers. Then Kara Danvers entered her world, melting layer after layer with her heated rays, melting Lena’s heart little by little. The progress was slow, but then it happened. One day, all of the ice was gone, melted before she could add more layers, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.

And in the aftermath of her brother and the discovery of Kara’s secret, she forged a new iceberg - - determined to never let anyone in ever again.

Waking up in a new world, she hoped if she kept her distance from the children, interacted just enough, but retained an emotional distance, it wouldn’t hurt as much when everything inevitably went south. And like their mother, the children are little flames, their flickers barely registering in the dark, but their embers grew brighter, lighting her path and showing her the way home. The path was melted and cleared specifically for her.

She had considered leaving them all—thinking they were better off without her near them, worried she would taint them, but everything has changed. 

The memory dislodged something inside of her and for the first time since she woke up, she feels like a mother.

* * *

Orla’s moms had instilled in her and her siblings that they should stay by their sides at all times when they’re out in public. She remembers when she got separated from her mom and sister in the grocery store two years ago.

She was five then and a kindergarten baby. She’s seven now and she’s not a scaredy cat, cry baby. Still, it was very scary to let go of the cart, so she could talk to one of the ladies at the tables- - handing out mini cups of ice cream. Orla loves ice cream and she wanted to try it. But as soon as she got her cup and headed back in the direction of her mother, she was gone. She tried not to panic, but there was a fluttery feeling in her stomach. She felt the fast beating of her heart and she started to feel hot all over— the sweat trickled down the back of her neck. Her hands were shaking as she tried to think of what to do.

She didn’t see her mom or sister anywhere. This is where the baby part comes in. She started crying so badly she couldn’t see. She no longer cared about the ice cream, tossing it in the trash as she wandered around the store, trying to find an adult to help her get to her mom. That’s what her moms always said she should do if she was lost.

Orla found a security guy. “Excuse me, mister?” She whimpered, tugging on his pants, peering up at him through watery eyes. He was tall, way taller than her mommy, who was like one of the tallest people in the world, or at least to her. “Can you help me?” She wipes her nose on her sleeve. “I lost my mama and can’t find her.”

It was minutes later her mom came bounding towards her and Orla sank into her body, sniffing at her perfume, playing with the ends of her hair, comforted by the knowledge that she wasn’t alone and lost any longer. She had her mom. That’s all that mattered.

Well she did get into trouble and didn’t get her promised ice cream. And she did have to go to bed early for like a whole week. Then her moms sat her and her siblings down for a long talk about walking off on their own. They warned them of the dangers involved and how it scared them when they didn’t know where they were.

So Orla does in fact know better, but when she spies Beth across the store, she has to go see her best friend. She got to talk to her sometimes on her tablet, but it’s not the same as when they are in class together or playing after school. Orla misses having someone besides her dumb sisters to talk to, who think they’re too old now to play with a second grader, as if she cares. Her brother doesn’t like playing with her— saying she’s too bossy and he hates dancing.

“Beth?” She calls tentatively, clamping down on her bottom lip when the other girl whirls around.

People sometimes thought she and Beth looked like twins and she thought it was totally cool. Having twin sisters, she’s always wanted a borned best friend like them. Beth’s blue eyes are almost the same color, but Orla’s are a deeper blue, the kind that only Kryptonians have. But Beth doesn’t know she’s part alien. That’s one of those secrets she has to keep.

They have similar curly blonde hair and they’re about the same height. Sometimes they even buy the same clothes so they can match. Beth goes to dance class like her and she’s the sister Orla wants. She asked her moms for another one. They said they were done having babies. Most of the time her sisters aren’t that bad, except when they get all secretive and refuse to play with her. So she has Beth.

“Orla?” She questions, rapidly blinking as if she can’t believe her own eyes. They run, meeting each other in the middle. She hugs her friend as tight as she can. “You’re here?”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna be back at school too.”

“You are?”

“Uh huh, and my mommy already called the dance studio.”

Beth squeals, jumping up and down with the news of Orla’s return. “Do you know who your teacher is?”

“No, my mommy didn’t say, but maybe we will be in the same class again.”

“Awesome sauce, me and Sara,” she thumbs over at her babysitter. “We are getting ice cream, wanna come?”

She does know she should ask for permission before going anywhere, even if she knows the person. And she does know Sara. Sara has babysat her and Beth after school, but her mom also doesn’t really know the babysitter with all of her gone memories. She bites her lip, flashing her gaze to the video game section. From her current position, she can’t see her mom or her sisters, but it isn’t like she’s leaving. And she can send her a text from her watch.

“Sure,” she agrees, taking Beth’s hand.

Sara raises a brow when she catches sight of her. “Orla? Where’s your mom?” She looks around the store in search of Kara.

Orla wasn’t raised to lie. Her moms have a strict rule about not lying, but she would never get to have ice cream with her best friend if she told the truth. “I’m with my aunts.” Which is technically not a lie. Her Aunt Sam did bring her to the store and is around somewhere like her Aunt Alex. “I told her I was going to see Beth.”

Maybe when she makes one of those wishes at New Years for the next year, she’ll add become a truth teller to the list of things to get better at - - for now she follows her friend through the mall as they head to the food court. They stroll together arm in arm, catching up on their summers and school. Orla misses school, putting on her uniform every morning and her mom doing her hair, her moms driving them to school, dance class, and really she just wishes things could be how they were.

They go to the rolled ice cream place that Orla hasn’t been to in forever, not since before her mama went away for a long time and they believed she joined Rao. Orla hadn’t wanted ice cream from her favorite stand after that, hating the sight of it and all the memories she had with her mom. Sometimes after dance class, they would come to the mall for ice cream, just her and her mama. It was their secret.

She picks her combination and grabs her cup when the ice cream guy hands it to her. She and Beth go find a table. “You look different,” Beth says when they sit.

Orla frowns. “I do?” She looks at herself every morning in the mirror. She doesn’t think anything has changed since May. But she’s not sure she would notice that kind of thing.

“Did you get a haircut?”

 _Oh right_. Orla cut off all of her hair and donated it to a charity to make wigs for sick kids. It was weird going from long hair to short hair, but she likes it like this. It means her moms are less annoying about it being tangly and wild. “Oh.” She touches the ends of her hair, tied up in a pink ribbon. “I got it cut,” she says.

“It looks nice.”

“Thank you.”

Sara sits at a nearby table where she can keep an eye on them. She spends her time on her phone, doing all her boring teenage stuff.

“I missed you a lot. O and E aren’t as fun as you.”

Beth was Orla’s first friend she made at her new school. She can’t really remember it even after watching all of the videos from that day, but Beth was the best thing about the whole day. They sat together at lunch and traded their snacks. Beth likes veggies and always has a bag of Doritos, she’s willing to part with in exchange.

Orla scoops a large chunk of ice cream onto her spoon, grinning happily when there’s an explosion of strawberry on her tongue. The stand at the beach in Midvale was good but nothing beats Rolled.

She wonders if her moms would mind if she told Beth about her mom being alive. They never said she couldn’t. And it’s not like everyone won’t know soon anyway. “You know how my mom was on that plane?”

“Yeah,” Beth nods, scrunching her face in confusion. “She died and then you went away for a long time.”

Orla was convinced her family was unlucky after that plane crashed. No one smiled or laughed. They would lay in their beds and cry— or they would sit on the couch, staring at the wall all day. None of them wanted to do much of anything including going to school. They stopped watching a lot of movies, especially ones with dead parents. She used to like _Lilo & Stitch_ until she understood that Lilo and Nani’s parents were dead _dead_ and left them alone. She had never known anyone who died in her whole life and then her mom was dead. Her whole life changed like that and suddenly she was living hours away.

She didn’t want to dance anymore or make one of her plays. It was all dumb. She just wanted to curl up in her bed, holding a bottle of her mom’s perfume, wishing it was her. She would spray it on her pillow sometimes and cry.

“Can you keep a secret?” She whispers, glancing around to make sure no one is listening. Beth leans closer, bobbing her head eagerly. “My mama didn’t die.”

Beth gasps, a little too dramatically for _even_ Orla, pulling back with a wide-eyed stare. “Na uh.”

“Ya huh,” she retorts defensively. “She came back to us. And we was together at our house in Midvale. She did my hair today too.”

Though both her moms are proficient at styling hair, having done all sorts of elaborate looks on their own, it’s Lena more often than not doing their hair, specifically Orla’s. Her mommy gives them a hairband or puts in a few clips and calls it a day, which is just fine with the seven year old. But her mama makes her sit or stand while she fixes her hair, smoothing out all the flyaways and sometimes spraying the icky hairspray. She tolerates it for her recitals. And there are times when she secretly enjoys her mom doing her hair. The combing part she could live without though.

“What if it’s a clone?”

Orla rolls her eyes, flipping back her ponytail with a touch of dramatic flare. “Don’t be dumb. You can’t clone humans.” Her mama explained to her once why they couldn’t. Human technology was nowhere near ready for that and using alien technology was unpredictable. “But no one knows yet, so you can’t tell nobody.”

“Okay.”

“Secret best friend handshake.” That’s how Beth realizes she is serious about this. They carry out their special handshake they made up last year after her sisters refused to teach her theirs. She thinks hers is cooler anyway.

“Is she like a zombie?”

“No,” Orla sighs, stabbing her ice cream with her spoon. “She’s human and the same.” That’s not the whole story, but she doesn’t feel like explaining amnesia and her mom not remembering her at all. Beth would give her the sad eyes and want to hug her like she did for Talia Banks after her mom died. She prefers to keep things normal, not wanting her best friend to feel bad for her.

Her fun ends with the arrival of police officers and mall security. They’re moving through the court and Orla knows it’s her they are after. Her mom was bound to notice her disappearance. She had that sinking feeling in her belly. When her moms get ahold of her, she’s toast.

When her moms finally reach her, holding her so tight she can barely breathe, there’s one thing that she never doubted. Her moms love her— a lot and she’s lucky. She knows she’s going to be grounded until she’s dead or gets married, whichever comes first, but there’s nothing like being in the middle of a mommy sandwhich.

However when they start making plans to go home, Orla bites her lips, pleading with her aunts to not let the angry moms take her. Can’t they see how mad her moms are. Orla doesn’t want to be punished forever. Her aunts smile, give her a kiss, and wish her lots of luck. She’ll need it. There’s no way her moms will be allowing any kind of fun to happen in her near future.

Downtrodden, she trails after her siblings, her moms behind her. A hand brushes her and before she knows if, her hands are entwined with both of her mothers. She’ll wear her punishment like a badge of honor, well maybe the first day. After the second day, being grounded is _super_ boring and she doesn’t get any dessert until it’s over either.

Her sisters carry all of their shopping bags from Target. Orla feels a little guilty interrupting their shopping trip. They didn’t have time to visit all of the stores for the other stuff they needed.

But she does feel protected when her moms cover her and her siblings as they rush out of the mall to the parking lot. The pizza people are taking their photos again and yelling a lot of questions at her moms. She doesn’t understand any of it. She scurries into the car after Liam, shoulders relaxing when they can’t see her anymore.

She doesn’t understand why they like taking pictures of her family. They aren’t special. They’re just a regular family.

“Glad you’re okay La.” E pats her on the head.

O ruffles her hair. “Don’t do that again. Mama was so scared,” she whispers low enough so their mom can’t hear them. “I think you freaked her out. She was awesome though doing her computer thing in the security place. She was all bossy and badas-“

Their mommy clears her throat, glaring at them in the rear view mirror. “Jar,” is all she says.

“Sissy, I’m happy we found you.”

“Yeah L?” She buckles herself into her booster seat. “So am I.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter was going to end very differently, but I think I've lived under my rock long enough. _*comes out and waves*_
> 
> Also, there are a few one-shots part of the delicate universe if you haven't had a chance to read them. They're fluffy and sweet, and I want to add to them. 
> 
> Find me on [ _tumblr_](https://sappho-mia.tumblr.com) I’m always happy to talk unless you’re some gross dude sending dick pics or trying to ask me out, then just no.


End file.
